Project 11 - Beyond the horizon: Regulating for a non-toxic future (Stuart Walker, University of Sheffield)

About the project

About the Project Are you passionate about solving complex environmental challenges? Interested in creating non-toxic environments that benefit society and nature alike? This innovative and exciting PhD project, co-designed with non-academic partners, is part of the NERC-funded ECOSOLUTIONS Doctoral Focal Award, and offers the opportunity to address real world challenges with key opinion-formers to help support sustainable chemical development and create non-toxic urban & rural landscapes. Project details: The aim of this project is to consider the future of chemical regulation. Through modelling, interviewing stakeholders and applying projections such as Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), you will determine what the future of chemical regulation should look like, then identify challenges, barriers, gaps and ways forward towards a non-toxic future. The project requires understanding of chemical regulation, the wider context it sits within and how both may change over coming years and decades. Initially, the project will seek to identify the overarching features and needs of chemical regulation for a non-toxic future, by extensive stakeholder consultation. The opportunities for development of a fit-for-purpose regulatory regime will then be stress-tested against possible socioeconomic and environmental futures. One or more futures may be defined, taking inputs from climate modelling, stakeholder interviews, the impact on development of previous regulations and established projections such as SSPs. These futures may be steps along a trajectory, or a series of possible futures, based on existing scenarios or models. Having established future cases and their chemical regulation requirements, you will then identify barriers to and trade-offs in successful implementation, aiming to understand major challenges, knowledge gaps, or the potential for shocks or disruption. The identification of barriers will consider not only the environmental context, but also social, economic and political aspects, for example geopolitics, climate, population dynamics, commercial and other drivers. Having identified key barriers, you will work with key stakeholders to identify approaches to improve the resilience of proposed approaches to the above factors. The student will work with academic supervisors, partner organisation Unilever and a range of stakeholders identified during the initial stages of the project. These inputs will enable a range of qualitative and quantitative inputs which can be used to define future scenarios, and to identify key features of a future chemicals sector. The ECOSOLUTIONS DFA Led by the Universities of Sheffield and York and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, ECOSOLUTIONS is a cutting-edge, transdisciplinary initiative. This innovative programme combines science, policy, and societal engagement to transform chemicals policy and management, enabling a safe, sustainable chemicals sector and non-toxic environments. This project is one of 19 projects that are available for the third ECOSOLUTIONS and final cohort who will work together to begin to understand and solve the problems of sustainable chemical design and use, as well tackling the problems that pollution causes in urban environments, rural landscapes and food systems. What You will Gain As an ECOSOLUTIONS PhD student, you will work with world-leading experts across diverse fields such as ecology, data science, digital solutions, chemistry, geography, psychology, environmental engineering, policy, and law. You will learn to tackle the risks posed by chemicals while enabling their societal benefits, adopting a whole-systems and solutions-focused approach. You will receive 3 years and 9 months of funding and take part in a dynamic training and development programme, including: Induction course: Connect with fellow students, supervisors, and the ECOSOLUTIONS team while exploring the programme’s mission. Primer course: Gain foundational knowledge on the environmental risks that chemicals pose, policy landscapes, and sustainable chemical innovation. Transferable skills workshops: Master data management, big data methods, research practices, communication, stakeholder engagement and more. Systems-solutions workshops: Collaborate across disciplines to explore sustainable chemical design and development, address pollution in urban & rural landscapes, and develop actionable solutions. Three-month secondment: Unilever International conferences: Share your findings and network with global experts. The skills you will need To do this project you will need the following essential skills: Data analysis and/or modelling Social science methodologies (desirable) Politics and/or management (desirable) Eligibility : To be considered for the ECOSOLUTIONS DFA, you will need at least an upper 2nd class honours degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline. As a collaboration of international research-led universities, we welcome students from all walks of life and from across the world. Within our programme, we are dedicated to diversifying our community. As part of our ongoing work to improve Equality, Diversity and Inclusion we strongly encourage applications from UK/Home candidates from identified underrepresented groups: Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, those from a disadvantaged socio-economic background, and disabled people. Start Your Research Career with ECOSOLUTIONS: This PhD is part of the ECOSOLUTIONS Doctoral Focal Award (DFA), a prestigious NERC-funded program dedicated to training the next generation of environmental practitioners. For more details and a full list of other PhD projects under this programme, visit: https://ecosolutions.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/ Application Web Page: For more information on how to apply, please visit the ECOSOLUTIONS website: https://ecosolutions.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/ Project specific enquiries: Dr Stuart Walker, s.r.walker@sheffield.ac.uk

Research areas