Biomechanics
Cardiff University
About the Project Can virtual reality help older adults maintain physical and cognitive function? This project will develop and test SPIN‑VR, an interactive exercise game that combines movement, cognitive challenges and wearable sensors. You will work with older adults, clinicians and carers to make the system safe, engaging and accessible.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Psychology
Cardiff University
About the Project Chronic pain conditions such as fibromyalgia, dysmenorrhea and back pain affect millions of people and severely disrupt daily life. An interesting but poorly understood feature of these chronic pain conditions is their association with heightened aversion to everyday sensory input, such as bright lights, loud sounds, touch, or strong smells. Chronic pain also has higher prevalence in neurodivergent people (e.g. autistic, ADHD) than would be expected.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Applied Mathematics
Cardiff University
About the Project About this project: Decoding calcium signalling during fertilization: a data-driven mathematical modelling framework for a non-invasive IVF diagnostic tool (Cardiff University, School of Computational and Mathematical Sciences) In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the primary treatment for infertility, with over 2.5 million cycles performed annually worldwide.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bioinformatics
Cardiff University
About the Project Prostate cancer remains a leading cause of cancer mortality, particularly in metastatic disease where treatment options are limited. This project seeks to investigate the role of CD200, an immune checkpoint protein enriched in prostate cancer stem cells, in promoting tumour growth and immune evasion.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary Why do some young people develop psychosis while others do not? This project will investigate the developmental origins of psychosis in young people at high genetic risk. Using unique clinical and population-based datasets, the student will identify early-life factors that influence the emergence of psychotic symptoms.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Bioinformatics
Cardiff University
About the Project How do glioblastoma stem cells evade therapy and drive tumour recurrence? This project will address this question by investigating how FGF2-FGFR1 signalling regulates protein homeostasis in these highly aggressive cells. Using patient-derived models, multi-OMICs datasets, proteomics and functional laboratory assays, you will identify novel molecular mechanisms underlying stemness and treatment resistance.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Mental Health: nature or nurture? For psychiatric disorders the answer is both, explaining how we need to know the molecular mechanisms. A new research area of Psychiatric Nutrigenomics at the interface between mental health genomics and dietary metabolism aims to address questions.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) like autism and ADHD affect millions, yet the underlying causes remain unclear. This PhD project investigates how mutations in the gene UPF3B, linked to NDDs, impair DNA repair in neurons.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary The human tonsils are crucial for producing neutralizing antibodies against infection yet are a breeding ground for Group A Streptococcus (GAS) which causes localized illnesses (tonsillitis) but also life threatening, invasive infections (>500,000 global deaths/year). Children prone to recurrent tonsillitis generate poor levels of neutralizing antibodies but the reasons why are unclear.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary By bringing together transcriptomics and cutting edge imaging, and data analysis techniques, this PhD project aims to examine how abnormalities in placental function leads to altered programming of the developing fetal brain in a neurodevelopmental disorder. This interdisciplinary project will provide the student with preclinical lab-based skills, and bioinformatic and data-handling skills that will be applicable to a wide range of career pathways.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary Immune cells are important for the control of viral infections. In particular, innate cytotoxic lymphocytes such as gamma delta T-cells and natural killer (NK) are able to sense healthy tissue and kill tumour and viral-infected cells.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biochemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project This project addresses a research priority for patients with the inherited heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), by investigating how the same mutation can result in widely different phenotypes. Increased variability can manifest between different individuals, regions of the heart, and from one cell to the next.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Cell Biology
Cardiff University
About the Project This project investigates how mutations in the KCNA1 gene cause Episodic Ataxia Type 1 (EA1), a rare neurological disorder characterised by impaired motor coordination. Using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), you will generate three-dimensional human cerebellar organoids to model early brain development and disease mechanisms.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Psychology
Cardiff University
About the Project This PhD project explores how young children’s brain develops during the first five years of life and how this shapes thinking, language, and self-control. Using data from 300 children, the study combines brain imaging methods (MRI, EEG, and fNIRS) with behavioural assessments.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Health Psychology
Cardiff University
About the Project Antipsychotic medication can reduce or resolve psychotic symptoms and help prevent relapse, but adherence remains challenging, particularly for young people with first episode psychosis. Decisions to continue, modify, or stop medication are influenced by more than clinical factors, involving beliefs, experiences, side effects, and wider biopsychosocial contexts.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Biomedical Engineering
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary How does the brain make decisions while we are moving and learning? This PhD project will combine EEG, virtual reality and robotic platforms to investigate how perceptual decisions unfold during active movement and how these neural processes change through motor learning. Participants will interact with immersive environments while performing controlled reaching tasks, allowing brain activity, movement and behaviour to be measured simultaneously.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary Worldwide, viruses that transmit to humans from biting insects account for ~17% of infectious diseases and ~700,000 deaths/yr, with ~4 billion people at risk. Climate change, population density, and deforestation, all increase the chances of outbreaks occurring. Oropouche and Mayaro are endemic in Brazil and frequently spill over into humans, with recent outbreaks leading to cases across Europe and North America.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Neuropsychology
Cardiff University
About the Project Background ------------ Human tissue damage does not always lead to pain. There are circumstances in which damage-responsive (nociceptive) "pain" pathways are active and yet minimal, or no pain is felt. The placebo effect is one example, as are reports of soldiers feeling no pain from battle-related injuries .
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)
Psychology
Cardiff University
About the Project We experience surprise when our best guess about the immediate future turns out to be wrong. This can be dangerous: it might mean tripping on an unexpectedly loose stone, or underestimating the temperature of a saucepan and burning your hand. Thus, to survive, animals are constantly in the business of minimising surprise. This PhD will test the idea that pain is a form of neurobiological surprise, specifically signalling unexpected threat or damage.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary Huntington's disease is an inherited brain disorder that causes progressive movement, cognitive and sleep problems, yet there is still no effective treatment. This PhD project asks why vulnerable neurons die, focusing on the link between DNA damage, PARP signalling, mitochondrial failure and metabolic collapse.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary How do viruses hijack our cells, and how can we turn this process to our advantage? This project will explore the fascinating molecular interactions between viruses and human cells, uncovering how viruses recognise, enter and manipulate their hosts. Using adenoviruses as a model system, you will investigate the virus–host relationships that drive infection and disease.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary The field of imaging genetics has had limited success identifying shared common risk variants between mental disorders and brain phenotypes, this being key to understanding neurobiological mechanism for ill mental health. This is partly due to the lack of biological specificity of current available brain phenotypes.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary Astrocytes are central regulators of brain function, controlling neuronal activity, metabolism, extracellular matrix organisation and resilience to disease. However, many astrocyte-enriched genes remain poorly understood. This PhD project will investigate novel astrocyte genes and signalling pathways identified through transcriptomic analyses.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Pharmacology
Cardiff University
About the Project Microorganisms grow as biofilms on surfaces, from teeth to surgical implants or even the lining of the lungs. Biofilms are dense cell aggregates embedded in a complex matrix of molecules that surrounds and protect the cells. Critically, this matrix confers resistance to antimicrobial treatments with both chemical (e.g. antibiotics) and physical (e.g.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Immunology
Cardiff University
About the Project Schizophrenia affects around 1% of the population and remains one of the most challenging mental health disorders to predict and treat. Increasing evidence suggests that changes in the immune system may contribute to disease development long before symptoms become severe. This project will investigate how immune pathways influence brain function in schizophrenia and whether they can be used to identify people at risk earlier.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary The risk of dying from infection is particularly high in the elderly and is related to ageing of the immune system. Immune cells called T-cells can confer long-term protection against infection and hence are critical for vaccine development. However, T-cell responses to infection become less effective with age, but the reasons for this are not yet well understood.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Neuroscience
Cardiff University
About the Project Poor sleep is linked to increased future dementia risk. The SleepBoost study is a £4.3m multi-centre investigation into this link and aims to demonstrate interventions that improve slow-wave sleep can increase waste clearance in the brain, which may slow or even reverse Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 21 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Control Systems
Cardiff University
About the Project This project brings together precision laser interferometry and single photon detection quantum technology for the first time and applies this innovative concept to test the hypothesis that space-time is quantized. Precision interferometry has been successfully developed for decades (also by our group) to launch the era of gravitational-wave astronomy.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 30 October 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Built Environment
Cardiff University
About the Project Electric currents are increasingly passed through the ground and construction materials to strengthen, drain or treat soils, to protect and repair concrete, to earth electrical infrastructure, and to image conditions beneath the surface. In each case, current flows through the water held in the material's pores, so its behaviour is coupled to the moisture distribution.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 3 November 2026
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Medicine
Cardiff University
About the Project Neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, developmental delay and bipolar disorder, are among the leading causes of disability worldwide, yet we still do not understand how the hundreds of known risk genes actually change the brain. These genes are scattered across the genome, and it is unclear whether they act through shared cellular mechanisms or many separate routes.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- 3 November 2026
- Funding
- Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
Manufacturing Engineering
Cardiff University
About the Project This PhD project will explore the capabilities of novel metal binder jetting additive manufacturing process for metallic materials, in particular the materials that are compatible for metal injection moulding (MIM) process. The surface integrity, mechanical, thermal and tribological properties of the built parts will be compared against parts produced via powder bed fusion process from equivalent materials.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Manufacturing Engineering
Cardiff University
About the Project 3 Year Self funded project This PhD project will ignite an exciting new research area for the sustainable production, consumption and recycling of metallic materials for use in Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Nanotechnology
Cardiff University
About the Project Realization of electrically pumped lighting and lasing with colloidal quantum dots will have a revolutionary impact on many disciplines including display, photonics, optical communication, chemical sensing, and medical diagnostics. Due to broadly tunable emission wavelengths and facile particle size-control and viable processability, colloidal quantum dots (QDs) are promising materials for attaining these goals.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Cancer Biology
Cardiff University
About the Project The most effective drugs for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) are based on asparaginase (Raja2012). However, in up to 17% of cases, they cause a serious, life-threatening complication - acute pancreatitis (AP), which forces treatment to be stopped. Previously, attempts have been made to mutate asparaginase (Maggi2017); however, these changes so far have not significantly reduced the pathology.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Applied Mathematics
Cardiff University
About the Project Electroencephalography (EEG) is a technique that measures the electric potential originating from the brain using electrodes located on the scalp. Its main purpose is to characterise the neural sources that give rise to such potentials. To this end, it is necessary to build approximation models of the head and the brain sources involved, which allow us to study electrical propagation through the head tissues.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Applied Statistics
Cardiff University
About the Project Gravitational-wave astronomy was pioneered in September 2015 with the first direct observation of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). A long time ago, far, far away two black holes spiralled into each other and merged, deforming space-time in the process. Those deformations propagated as waves, carrying information about the properties of the collision of the two black holes.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description AI-driven cyber defence systems promise faster detection and response, but real deployments remain constrained by limited scalability and weak coordination across distributed environments. This PhD project will develop an autonomous multi-agent cyber defence framework that performs distributed monitoring, coordinated decision-making and automated response at scale.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Biochemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) commonly occur in biology with ~650,000 contributing to processes critical to human life. From cancer to dementia, their dysregulation contributes to many disease states. PPIs occur when one protein interacts with another resulting in functional changes that have repercussions on the cell. Their importance means PPIs are studied across the different bioscience fields and many tools developed to investigate them.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Ecology
Cardiff University
About the Project Description of Project: Human activities (e.g. mining, construction) disturb soils and associated organisms, which is followed by naturalisation as ecosystems reestablish themselves. The services provided by these natural ecosystems can include enhanced ground stability, protection against erosion, carbon storage and many more.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Biochemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Proteins are nature’s very own molecular machines carrying out functions ranging from catalysis to molecular recognition to energy conversion. One of the grand challenges in nanotechnology is to exploit the molecular properties of proteins within a non-biological context such as for use in molecular electronics (e.g. transistors), environmental detection systems, clinical monitoring and even in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Large multimodal models are increasingly used as high-level “cognitive” modules in robotics, translating natural-language instructions into plans, explanations, and intermediate goal representations. Their fluency and broad knowledge make them powerful for generalisation, but they can also hallucinate, which is a mismatch between what the model outputs and what the robot can verify in the current scene.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Applied Mathematics
Cardiff University
About the Project The characterisation of biological tissue microstructure in vivo and non-invasively is of outmost interest in science. If successful, it could reveal unique insights into biological processes, including aging and cancer. In this regard, MRI plays a crucial role due to its superb flexibility to depict soft tissues.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Manufacturing Engineering
Cardiff University
About the Project This PhD project will ignite an exciting new research area for the sustainable production, consumption and recycling of metallic materials for use in Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes, in particular binder jetting process. With the proposed research route, the energy footprint of producing metal powders will be dramatically reduced. Chips will be collected after machining and converted to powders for binder jetting.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description AI research today adheres to a data-first paradigm. From a mathematical perspective, however, data can be seen as a product of models, i.e., mathematical assumptions such as structures, variables, and parameters, underlying AI systems.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Design
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Background Our workplaces are becoming increasingly connected. While this enables remote work and can improve accessibility, it can also introduce potential issues related to workplace surveillance. Software used for employee monitoring (“bossware”) is often presented in terms of its benefits to the workers, teams and organisations, with its side effects and negative consequences often overlooked.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Cyber Security
Cardiff University
About the Project Considering doing a PhD in cyber security, but don’t want to spend three years working on something nobody outside academia ever sees? Fair. That’s why CyberInvent exists. Through CyberSight25 , industry leaders have laid out the cyber problems they genuinely want solved. Not “nice to have” ideas, but the stuff they’re actually dealing with. Things like: How do we make sense of the ridiculous amount of cyber data already being collected?
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Flagship black-box large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-5 and Gemini-3 perform well across a wide range of tasks, including those that require reasoning or generating explanations. However, they can be unreliable on specialised, domain-specific text classification tasks (e.g., sentiment analysis, hate-speech detection), particularly when in-domain data is limited or decision boundaries are subtle.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Manufacturing Engineering
Cardiff University
About the Project 3 Year Self funded project Surface texturing/structuring has witnessed a substantial progress over the past decades as it is seen as a viable option for surface engineering, resulting in significant improvements in load capacity, wear resistance and friction coefficient of tribo-mechanical parts, thereby contributing to the development of sustainable manufacturing and surface functionalisation of components.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project The Rhys lab is an exciting new lab looking to recruit new students to design and engineer peptides and proteins for new applications ( rhyslab.com ). One of our current focuses is on engineering new artificial metalloenzymes . These are metal-containing proteins that can be engineered to catalyse reactions that have not been observed in nature.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description NLP benchmarks strongly influence research directions, yet many benchmarks prioritise convenience and leaderboard performance over realism, usability, and societal relevance. As a result, benchmark scores often provide limited insight into how NLP systems behave in real-world settings.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astronomy
Cardiff University
About the Project The Cardiff Astronomy Instrumentation Group (AIG) is one of the world leaders in Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) development. These superconducting detectors are the most promising technology for the next generation of millimetre – THz wave detectors.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Biomedical Engineering
Cardiff University
About the Project 3 Year Self funded project This PhD project will ignite an exciting new research area involving hybrid additive-subtractive manufacturing (AM-SM) routes for the fabrication of biomedical implants economically to meet the growing demand of biomedical industries.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Summary Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurological disease in the world. Current PD therapies and medical interventions are very limited and only address the symptoms of this disease highlighting the need for new and effective treatments for this disease. Recently, we discovered a series of small molecules that have the potential to treat Parkinson’s disease.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Biodiversity
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Livestock species have an incredible history, having been recently domesticated from wildlife species such as the aurochs, mouflon, wild buffalo etc, and since then having been changed by early and modern farmers to fulfil an economic role supporting human societies.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Nanotechnology
Cardiff University
About the Project Two-dimensional (2D) materials offer a platform that allows the creation of heterostructures with a variety of properties. One- atom-thick crystals now comprise a large family of these materials, collectively covering a comprehensive range of features and numerous intrigue scientific challenges. For instance, the property of CVD synthesised atomically thin 2D materials have strong substrate dependence associated with their epitaxial lattice growth.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Economics
Cardiff University
About the Project We intend to run an experiment on cooperation following the Konovalov et al (2025) paper in Summer 2026. The point is that we ask participants if they want to cooperate; our pilot study showed that yes they do, even if they don't have an explicit reward for doing so. We expect a lot of data and a lot of opportunities for consequential experiments. In particular, we will collect sociodemographic data, and we would like to have someone who'd analyze it for us.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Details Abstract With the rise of autonomous intelligent technology, the ability to explain why a particular action was proposed or taken is more urgent than ever. This implies that the kind of reasoning that takes place in intelligent systems should be made transparent and explainable, in particular to people who are not AI experts. We propose to achieve this using recent developments in theories of computational argument.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Ranking systems are central to decision-making in domains such as sports analytics, search engines, recruitment, and academic evaluations. Yet, most ranking algorithms operate as opaque black boxes, providing little insight into why one item is ranked above another.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Biophysics
Cardiff University
About the Project Smart wearable electronics that are fabricated on fabrics or textile substrates are of importance for next-generation portable electronic device systems. Ideal wearable and portable applications not only require the device to be integrated into the various platform but also desire a self-powered feature. At present, most of all self-powered wearable electronics are designed to be connected with energy generation and storage devices separately.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description The increasing availability of high-resolution football tracking data has transformed performance analysis, yet most existing machine learning approaches remain task-specific, league-dependent, and poorly transferable.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Applied Statistics
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Remote sensing measurements provide indirect, noisy, and often incomplete observations of environmental systems. Tasks such as super-resolution, SAR despeckling, and spectral unmixing are fundamentally ill-posed inverse problems, yet most modern deep learning approaches focus on producing point estimates and lack reliable uncertainty quantification.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Applied Statistics
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Flood mapping from Earth observation (EO) data is a critical input to disaster risk management and climate resilience planning. However, machine learning models for flood detection and flood susceptibility mapping often struggle to generalise when applied to new geographical regions.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems (such as Large Language Models) are increasingly used to support high-stakes text production, understanding how humans and AI systems should collaborate becomes critical. In many real-world settings, full automation is neither desirable nor acceptable, and responsibility must remain with human decision-makers.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Nanotechnology
Cardiff University
About the Project Recent advances in energy harvesting using photovoltaic and triboelectric effects demonstrate outstanding performances of energy harvesters as power supplies. However, there are still fundamental issues that need to be dealt with, such as power interruption due to intermittence of environmental energy and long-term device stability in air.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Gravitational waves are emitted by compact binaries—pairs of black holes and/or neutron stars—spiralling around each other at close to the speed of light before colliding in a violent coalescence. Since the first detection of a binary black hole collision via gravitational waves in 2015, hundreds of compact binary mergers have been observed with our current gravitational-wave interferometers: LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Note: This PhD advert requires the applicant to develop their own research proposal before submitting an application (see “How to Apply”). The proposal shall fall within the outline below, but must be more specific, detailing a project aligned with the applicant’s interests. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework has moved conservation into a measurable, indicator‑driven era.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Nanotechnology
Cardiff University
About the Project Project description: Organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites solar cells (PSCs) have gained considerable attention and are recognized as promising third-generation photovoltaic technology due to their excellent photovoltaic performance and high compatibility with cost-effective manufacturing processes.[1,2] Significant progress has been made in increasing the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the PSCs in recent years, and they have achieved a PCE of…
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Gravitational waves (GWs) are produced by some of the most violent events in the Universe, such as the mergers of black holes and the explosive deaths of massive stars. Rapid detection of such signals can trigger follow-up observations by other facilities including ground-based telescopes, satellites, and neutrino observatories, greatly increasing the scientific payoff of such discoveries.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astrophysics
Cardiff University
About the Project The Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer are proposed next-generation gravitational-wave observatories which will be able to detect black hole mergers throughout the observable universe. Thus, observations of black hole mergers have the potential to provide insights into the formation of the first stars, and of the seed black holes which grow to form the supermassive black holes observed in the centres of galaxies.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Dr Jennifer Edwards is looking for a PhD student to develop a synthetic strategy for wet chemical, microwave assisted, targeted synthesis of sub-nanometre mono- and bimetallic clusters as semiconductor dopants. Research in the Edwards group focusses on the development of novel materials for use in heterogeneous and photocatalysis.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Alzheimer’s disease is one of the greatest healthcare challenges facing 21st century society. AD is associated with formation of fibrils and plaques in brain tissue that impair proper functioning of neurons. Plaques are formed by aggregation of amyloid-beta peptides that are soluble in isolation, but insoluble when bound to one another.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced by water electrolysis using renewable electricity. Its production reduces dramatically CO 2 emissions compared to grey hydrogen, which is derived from fossil fuels without carbon capture.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Nucleoside analogues (NAs) are an important class of antiviral and anticancer agents commonly used in the therapy of many different viral infections and cancer conditions. To exert their biological activity, NAs must be phosphorylated ( in vivo ) via three consecutive phosphorylations to generate their triphosphate form (NTP), which is generally the active molecule.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project Prof. Rebecca Melen is looking for an enthusiastic PhD student to join her team on an ERC funded project on sustainable catalysis. This PhD project offers the student a unique opportunity to develop expertise at the forefront of main group radical catalysis.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project This PhD project will advance next‑generation multiscale electronic structure methods by integrating machine‑learning models with hierarchical QM/QM techniques. You will develop new theory, create software, and apply your approaches to supported metal catalysts for CO 2 reduction - contributing to UK efforts to achieving net zero, and to foundational advances in computational chemistry.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project This project aims to develop new techniques in electron microscopy to characterise the structure of nanoparticles in a variety of liquids. A new transmission electron microscope is being installed at the Cardiff Catalysis Institute, which will provide researchers the ability to image nanoparticles at the resolution of individual atoms. This world-leading instrument will have the core ability of imaging nanoparticles in both gaseous and liquid environments.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Social Care practitioners navigate critical information overload when evaluating at-risk populations, synthesizing dispersed information held across multiple sources, including social support documentation, health records and educational evaluations, among many others.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astronomy
Cardiff University
About the Project Current gravitational-wave detectors observe gravitational-wave signals from binary compact objects—black holes and neutron stars—in the final few moments as they inspiral towards a cataclysmic collision.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astrophysics
Cardiff University
About the Project Supersonic turbulent motions are thought to play a major role in the star formation process in galaxies. Theories have suggested that turbulence is responsible for shaping the interstellar medium (ISM), regulating star formation, and even setting the masses of stars as they form in young clusters.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astronomy
Cardiff University
About the Project Over half the light ever emitted by stars in the Universe having been absorbed by cosmic dust, and the situation is worse (>90%) when looking at regions where star-formation is occurring. Luckily, the dust re-emits the energy absorbed in the far-infrared/sub-millimetre, and so by observing in these wavelengths we can understand these cold dense regions where stars are born.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly embedded in contemporary digital environments, yet their handling of crisis-related interactions remains inconsistent and carries substantial safety risks.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Analytical Chemistry
Cardiff University
About the Project The development of novel imaging tools and technologies, including super-resolution optical microscopy, has revolutionised our understanding of biology. Combining light microscopy with chemical sensing at the nanoscale in living cells holds the promise to unravel processes presently not accessible with existing techniques.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Applied Statistics
Cardiff University
About the Project Black holes and neutron stars are the densest objects in the universe, well beyond what we can produce in a laboratory and at the very edge of our understanding of physics. They lead to puzzling physical consequences, in particular regarding the behaviour of space and time.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astronomy
Cardiff University
About the Project CONTEXT. Much of the interstellar gas in a galaxy like the Milky Way is in dense molecular clouds. When these clouds enter a spiral arm, they merge to form larger clouds, and are compressed to higher densities. This leads to enhanced rates of star formation, which is why spiral arms are lit up by the radiation from massive stars; massive stars evolve so fast that they are only visible close to where they form.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Anatomy
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder and is associated with a range of motor and cognitive symptoms. While dopamine replacement strategies, such as L-DOPA, effectively impact on motor impairments, much less is understood about the origin of the cognitive features and few treatment options are available to address these symptoms.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astronomy
Cardiff University
About the Project The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) make it possible to obtain high-resolution images of tiny areas of sky. The Euclid Observatory, which was launched in July 2023, will carry out a survey of the sky with the resolution of HST but over most of the sky.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astronomy
Cardiff University
About the Project 2 year MPhil We don’t know how the planet Venus – Earth's near-twin in size and mass – has evolved so differently. Today, the surface is scorching hot and the skies are full of acid. We don’t know if Venus had a more temperate past, whether there was surface water, how many active volcanoes it has today, or even if there is niche habitat for microscopic life in the clouds. The project will use a dataset from radio and ultraviolet astronomy.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astrophysics
Cardiff University
About the Project CONTEXT. Star formation is one of the most fundamental processes regulating the evolution and appearance of the Universe, with implications for many diverse areas of astronomy. Two of the key observations that any theory of star formation must explain are (i) the Initial Mass Function, i.e. the distribution of stellar masses, and in particular the fact that the most common mass is of order 0.3 M Sun ; and (ii) the multiplicity statistics of stars, i.e.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astronomy
Cardiff University
About the Project CONTEXT. Filaments play a critical role in star formation. There are dense, massive filaments where a large fraction of low- and intermediate-mass stars form, and which also channel interstellar gas into even denser, more massive hubs where high-mass stars form; and there are more diffuse, lighter filaments which feed material onto the denser filaments.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Project Description Human evaluation remains a central component of assessing modern natural language processing (NLP) systems, particularly for tasks where correctness, usefulness, or appropriateness cannot be fully captured by automatic metrics. However, existing human evaluation practices are often costly, inconsistent, difficult to reproduce, and poorly adapted to the scale and diversity of contemporary NLP systems.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Applied Mathematics
Cardiff University
About the Project Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a non-invasive medical imaging technique that allows characterisation of human brain electrophysiology by measuring magnetic fields generated by neural currents. Since its invention, MEG has shown its value for understanding brain function in health and disease, providing unique insights into neurophysiological processes.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Nanotechnology
Cardiff University
About the Project CuInZnS3 quantum dots (CIZS QDs) is a non-toxic and phosphide free material which has a significant potential to be used in wearable PVs and indoor PVs [1,2]. However, due to its emission properties apparently dominated by defects, its carrier dynamics are more complicated than binary metal chalcogenides and are not yet well understood.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiff University
About the Project Galaxies are key building blocks of our universe, but we still do not fully understand the physical processes that govern their evolution. At the heart of this puzzle lies the interstellar medium (ISM)—the reservoir of gas that fuels star formation. The ability of a galaxy to turn its gas into stars is crucial in determining its future.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only
Astronomy
Cardiff University
About the Project High redshift galaxies discovered using submillimetre surveys of the sky (so-called submillimetre galaxies) are likely ancestors of present-day massive early-type galaxies. Thanks to the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have discovered many extreme star forming systems at redshifts 3-5 implying enormous gas reservoirs.
- Location
- Cardiff, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Deadline
- Year-round applications
- Funding
- Self-Funded PhD Students Only