Developmental Psychology
University of Bath
About the Project This project is one of several in competition for funding from the GW4 BioMed3 MRC Doctoral Landscape Programme (DLP), which is offering up to 17 studentships for entry in September 2026. The partnership brings together the Universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter to develop the next generation of biomedical researchers.
- Location
- Bath, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Developmental Psychology
University of Greenwich
About the Project Bullying remains an important public health issue, with potentially negative short and long-term impacts on individuals (Gorman et al., 2021). A substantial body of research investigating experiences of school bullying and this has led to the development of evidence-informed generalised anti-bullying programmes, which have demonstrated some success (e.g. Hensums et al., 2023).
- Location
- London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 30 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)
Developmental Psychology
University of Huddersfield
About the Project Reading and mathematics both rely on the ability to process sequential information over time, which may explain why developmental dyslexia and developmental dyscalculia so frequently co-occur. Yet while both conditions involve some form of timing difficulty, the nature of these impairments appears to differ — and this project sets out to investigate exactly how.
- Location
- Huddersfield, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 30 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)
Developmental Psychology
Loughborough University
About the Project A growing body of research suggests that different aspects of language influence the way we think about, represent, and apply numbers and mathematical concepts. One aspect of language that has repeatedly been shown to affect numerical processing concerns the way numbers are named. Indeed, number-naming systems vary significantly across languages.
- Location
- Loughborough, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 7 January 2027
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
Loughborough University
About the Project Once children have become proficient in using small numbers, they are faced with new challenges as soon as numbers get bigger. One of these challenges concerns the place-value structure of multi-digit numbers. Placevalue understanding involves recognising that a digit’s meaning depends both on its face value and on its position within a multi-digit number.
- Location
- Loughborough, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 7 January 2027
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
Loughborough University
About the Project A growing body of research suggests that emotional factors play a significant role in shaping how children learn and apply mathematical concepts. One such factor that has repeatedly been shown to affect arithmetic performance is mathematics anxiety (MA), which is a negative emotional response towards mathematics that interferes with learning and performing mathematics.
- Location
- Loughborough, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 1 April 2027
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
University of Sheffield
About the Project A large body of evidence indicates that skilled sports players can anticipate the actions of their opponents more accurately than novices, for example in sports such as tennis. This project will develop video simulation measures of anticipatory skill and assess the neural processes underlying expert performance using EEG.
- Location
- Sheffield, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
University of Sheffield
About the Project Ninety percent of the globe’s road traffic fatalities are located in Low- and Middle- Income Countries (LMICs) but the majority of research available to date addresses driver behaviour in high income countries. There is a lot of scope to test the extent to which existing models of driving behaviour translate to LMICs and examine factors that uniquely predict crashes in LMIC contexts.
- Location
- Sheffield, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
University of Sheffield
About the Project The Topic Executive functions (EF)—the goal-directed thinking skills that underpin learning—develop rapidly in early childhood. Yet, the toddler years remain the "dark ages" of cognitive development. While we know that social inequality impacts EF and subsequent school readiness, the precise mechanisms remain unclear.
- Location
- Sheffield, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
University of Reading
About the Project Human communication relies on the ability to coordinate actions in time with others. This PhD investigates how sensorimotor timing and interpersonal synchrony relate to phonological awareness and reading ability across development. The project examines how children and adults synchronise with auditory, visual, and socially meaningful cues, and whether key timing components such as prediction, synchronisation, and adaptation, support literacy skills.
- Location
- Reading, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
University of Reading
About the Project Project Overview: A considerable literature has investigated the memory encoding and retrieval mechanisms that support language processing during real-time comprehension in different populations of speakers. This project aims to investigate these working memory operations in first language speakers and different groups of language learners.
- Location
- Reading, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
University of Bradford
About the Project Evidence supports long-term benefits of frequent reading in older adults including increased longevity, and reduced risk of cognitive decline across all levels of education (Bavishi et al., 2016; Chang et al., 2021). Recent evidence showed that reading fiction improves Theory-of-Mind (ToM) when compared to non-fiction and no-reading conditions (Wimmer et al., 2024).
- Location
- Bradford, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Developmental Psychology
University of Sheffield
About the Project Research demonstrates that the mental and physical health of autistic adults is significantly poorer than for non-autistic adults (Bishop-Fitzpatrick & Rubenstein, 2019; Cage, 2018). Life expectancy is also shockingly low for autistic adults (Smith DaWalt et al. 2019; Hirvikoski et al. 2016). The way an individual is treated by others, including by society at large, can have a fundamental impact on wellbeing (Cooper et al. 2004).
- Location
- Sheffield, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only