Agricultural Sciences
University of Nottingham
About the Project Lead Supervisor - Dr Hannah Cooper (UoN) The Opportunity The UK sugar beet industry spends £12–18 million annually on nitrogen fertiliser alone, yet in some instances it has been shown that cover crops can provide 30–60 kg N/ha to the following sugar beet crop.
- Location
- Nottingham, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 30 September 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)
Agricultural Sciences
Western Sydney University
About the Project The Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE) is offering one postgraduate research scholarship to an ambitious PhD candidate for a 3-year PhD program of research to commence in 2027. The candidate will investigate and generate new knowledge of mechanisms controlling complex mango fruit colour and quality, as well as their interactions with the environment at a crop level.
- Location
- Sydney, Australia, Australia
- Deadline
- 30 September 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Agricultural Sciences
University of Aberdeen
About the Project Carbon farming has significant potential to support climate change mitigation while improving the resilience and livelihoods of smallholder farmers. However, reliable measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of carbon outcomes across fragmented and heterogeneous farms remains costly and challenging to scale.
- Location
- Aberdeen, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 16 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Agricultural Sciences
Queen’s University Belfast
About the Project Climate change and drug resistance are posing real issues for farmers, threatening productivity and the sustainability of livestock farming. Problems are especially acute in areas such as Africa, where disease burden is highest and options for control most limited.
- Location
- Belfast, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 16 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Agricultural Sciences
University of Aberdeen
About the Project Agriculture in Ethiopia faces major challenges from declining soil fertility, land degradation, climate variability and reduced crop productivity. Smallholder farmers often lack access to timely information to support decisions on fertiliser use, water management and sustainable farming practices. Growing interest in regenerative agriculture and carbon sequestration is creating opportunities to improve food security and climate resilience.
- Location
- Aberdeen, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 16 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Agricultural Sciences
Queen’s University Belfast
About the Project Systemic fungal infections caused by Candida yeast species are a growing public health concern, with high mortality rates and rising resistance to conventional antifungals. Emerging evidence indicates that environmental exposure to agricultural fungicides contributes to resistance in clinical strains, creating a critical link between crop protection practices and human health.
- Location
- Belfast, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 16 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Agricultural Sciences
University of Lincoln
About the Project Sugar beet is a strategically important crop and its productivity is increasingly threatened by insect pests such as aphids that transmit virus yellows, and beet flea beetles. As climate change alters pest distributions and seasonal dynamics, there is a growing need for robust surveillance systems that can provideearly warning of pest outbreaks and support timely management decisions.
- Location
- Lincoln, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 16 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)
Agricultural Sciences
Queen’s University Belfast
About the Project Shape the Future of Sustainable Livestock Systems We are seeking a skilled, ambitious, and forward‑thinking researcher to join a groundbreaking project developing methodologies for the holistic assessment of livestock systems . If you are driven to apply advanced AI to real‑world challenges, this studentship offers the perfect platform to make a meaningful impact.
- Location
- Belfast, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 16 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Agricultural Sciences
University of Aberdeen
About the Project This project will develop a formal verification framework to address sustainability challenges in complex multi-agent systems (MASs). These systems capture interactions between autonomous agents—individuals, organisations, or digital entities—whose decisions involve uncertainty, incentives, and trade-offs.
- Location
- Aberdeen, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 16 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Agricultural Sciences
Cranfield University
About the Project We invite applications from ambitious life-science graduates for a fully funded PhD at Cranfield University, supported by the EPSRC Doctoral Landscape Award. The award covers Home fees (£5,238 p.a.) and provides a £24,500 annual tax-free stipend for three years.
- Location
- Bedford, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 11 November 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Agricultural Sciences
University of Leicester
About the Project Artificial intelligence will transform the identification, measurement, conservation and exploitation of biodiversity and the understanding and applications that can come from genomics, transcriptomics and genome assemblies. We have a range of opportunities with several directions to co-develop projects using CNNs and transformers to build foundational, multi-modal language models for plant genomics, phylogenetics and functional trait analysis.
- Location
- Leicester, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Birmingham
About the Project Micronutrient deficiencies—often referred to as hidden hunger—affect over two billion people worldwide, with iron and zinc deficiencies among the most prevalent. Wheat is a major global staple crop, yet its nutritional value is limited by the presence of phytic acid, a naturally occurring antinutrient that binds essential minerals and reduces their bioavailability in the human diet.
- Location
- Birmingham, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Dundee
About the Project Domestic crop production, increasingly reliant on reduced fertiliser and agrochemical inputs whilst also achieving high yields, is necessary to maintain a high level of food security in the UK. Increased demand for berries is driven both by their popularity and their proven health benefits. Like many crop and tree species, strawberries and raspberries are susceptible to diseases caused by oomycete pathogens, causing significant crop losses.
- Location
- Dundee, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Dundee
About the Project Mean global temperatures have risen by 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and could climb by another 4°C by 2100. Climate change is already affecting crop yields, and without effective mitigation, global yields of major crops could decline by as much as 36% by the end of the century. In the UK staple crops wheat and barley, each 1°C increase above optimal growth temperature is estimated to reduce yield by 5-6% ( Jacott & Boden, 2020 ).
- Location
- Dundee, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Dundee
About the Project Protein S-acylation is a reversible fatty acid-based post-translational modification of proteins. We have demonstrated that S-acylation affects nearly half of all membrane proteins, is a dynamic modification (cycles on and off to control protein activity or function) and impacts every aspect of plant growth and development.
- Location
- Dundee, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Dundee
About the Project From the earliest farmers to modern plant breeders, humans have bred and selected for cereals that develop to produce higher grain yields. Excitingly, recent work in the McKim lab suggests that the plant hormone jasmonate is an important developmental regulator in barley. However, we would like to find out how jasmonate interacts with other pathways controlling barley development and its role in environmental responses.
- Location
- Dundee, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Dundee
About the Project Plant cell wall glycans are a major component of plant biomass, essential for plant physiology, development, and protection against environmental stress and disease. They also provide raw materials for valuable economic products, including wood, textiles, paper, biofuels, and food additives such as gelling and thickening agents. Additionally, they serve as dietary fiber, which supports human nutrition and immune health.
- Location
- Dundee, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Dundee
About the Project Protein Targeting Chimera (PROTAC) degraders are small molecules able to recruit a ubiquitin ligase to a protein of interest and promote degradation. This emerging technology is a powerful research tool for studying lethal genes or protein depletion at specific life stages.
- Location
- Dundee, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Dundee
About the Project Plants living on land face brutal threats from pests, dehydration and temperature. To survive and thrive, land plants evolved a waxy ‘cuticle’ and distinctive epidermal cells such as gas pores and defensive barbs. Further changes to the epidermis help cereal performance on arid grasslands and play important roles in climate resiliency.
- Location
- Dundee, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Dundee
About the Project Protein S-acylation is a reversible fatty acid-based post-translational modification of proteins. We have demonstrated that S-acylation affects nearly half of all membrane proteins, is a dynamic modification (cycles on and off to control protein activity or function) and impacts every aspect of plant growth and development.
- Location
- Dundee, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Leicester
About the Project Second Supervisor: Dr Marie Kirby, Agriculture and Environment, Harper Adams University Project Outline Environmentally resident mycobacteria are important animal pathogens known to infect cattle, pigs, fowl, sheep and most other commercially valuable livestock.
- Location
- Leicester, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Leicester
About the Project At the forefront of agricultural genetics, the fundamental objectives of the project aim to define biodiversity and relationships of agricultural species and their wild relatives, leading to prospects for developing new genotypes and approaches to increase farm sustainability and ensure food security. We work on crop plants and farm animals at DNA, chromosome and genome or genomic levels.
- Location
- Leicester, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Reading
About the Project Project Overview: Insects associated with plants comprise one of the most diverse groups of species on earth. Their impact on the ecology and evolution of their host plants is widely recognised, as is their contribution to multiple important ecosystem services. While concerns have been raised about recent declines of insect populations, the wider consequences of such declines are largely unknown.
- Location
- Reading, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Agricultural Sciences
University of Reading
About the Project As the world transitions to low carbon systems across all sectors, dramatic changes will be required across our society to reach our net zero targets. The food system, which is currently estimated to be responsible for 20-30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is one where particular urgency is required. Mohareb et al (2018) found that urban areas have strong influence over the majority of emissions in an industrialised food system.
- Location
- Reading, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only