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PhD opportunities: University of St Andrews

Compare 19 doctoral research opportunities connected with University of St Andrews, including project summaries, funding and application deadlines.

Inorganic Chemistry

Development of catalytic processes for the chemical upcycling of Nitrile Gloves

University of St Andrews

About the Project Are you passionate about sustainable chemistry and cutting-edge catalysis? Join the Kumar Research Group ( https://kumarresearchlab.com/ ) to work at the intersection of catalysis, polymer modification, and plastic recycling in collaboration with a leading PPE company, Polyco Healthline ( https://www.polycohealthline.com/ ).

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
30 September 2026
Funding
Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Applied Chemistry

(HeliOS) Helical Out-of-Equilibrium Systems: Exploring Light-Induced Structural Distortions

University of St Andrews

About the Project The Greenfield group is seeking highly motivated and ambitious students for a funded PhD position, ( international student fees can be fully-covered ). This opportunity is ideal for individuals with an interest in supramolecular chemistry and molecular machines. The Project...

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Analytical Chemistry

Advanced Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy – method development and applications

University of St Andrews

About the Project Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is a magnetic resonance technique that is exclusively and exquisitely sensitive to unpaired electrons that are found in radicals and paramagnetic metal complexes. Despite the relative rarity of unpaired electrons EPR finds widespread application in structural biology and biophysics, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis and materials science.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

Applied Statistics

Causal inference and trial emulation for ecological and/or environmental observational data

University of St Andrews

About the Project Conducting formal causal inference for ecological and/or environmental data is challenging due to the complex observational processes that are usually involved. The propensity score method allows the estimation of causal effects in non-experimental studies, however this is dependent on constructing emulated experiments to ensure independence between the observation process and treatment allocation.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Applied Statistics

EASTBIO: Tracing the fitness effects of new mutations across evolutionary timescales

University of St Andrews

About the Project Mutations are the raw material of evolution: they generate the variation on which natural selection acts. Understanding their fate is therefore key to a fundamental question in evolutionary biology: how do species adapt to ever-changing environments? Mutations can be deleterious, advantageous, or neutral, depending on whether they decrease, increase, or have no effect on fitness (Moutinho 2020).

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Organic Chemistry

Enantioselective Cobalt-Catalysed Skeletal Rearrangements

University of St Andrews

About the Project Research in the Johnston group broadly focuses on the development of new catalytic reactions for (i) the streamlined synthesis of known small molecules or (ii) unprecedented access to novel building blocks, with potential applications in drug discovery and agrochemistry. To achieve these goals, we utilise and combine various areas of catalysis, including organocatalysis, photoredox catalysis, and base metal catalysis.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Inorganic Chemistry

Exploration of novel molecular photoswitches

University of St Andrews

About the Project Research activities in Kilian group are centred on the design and synthesis of novel organophosphorus and heavier Group 15 (As, Sb, Bi) organoelement compounds. We synthesize new compounds for various practical applications, such as molecular switches, or catalysis. Our research has recently been directed towards a new class of molecular switches, which show reversible change of molecular geometry by the action of light.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Applied Statistics

Improved survival analyses in molecular cancer studies

University of St Andrews

About the Project Improved survival (whether this is literal survival, time to a change in symptoms, or time to disease progression) is a key outcome in cancer research. Most applications of survival analysis in the area use standard approaches, but the manner in which events are defined may bias these. Estimating and addressing such biases may be one strand of this project.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Applied Statistics

Improving estimates of uncertainty in wildlife population assessments

University of St Andrews

About the Project Reliable estimates of wildlife population size are fundamental to effective management and conservation. One important component of reliability is the precision (or, conversely, variance) of the estimate.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Applied Statistics

Inferring Events from Phylogenetic Analysis of Eyewitness Testimony in the Historical and Forensic Record

University of St Andrews

About the Project This project will consider if we can use phylogenetic analysis to correct for imperfections in eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony from events with multiple witnesses is often inconsistent and sometime contradictory. If we think of these inconsistencies as mutations from a common ancestor with perfect recall (but not necessarily perspective) on the event, can we obtain an objective estimate of what the collected witnesses saw?

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Applied Statistics

Movement through space and time; realistic movement for species abundance methods

University of St Andrews

About the Project Evidence-based conservation and ecology are reliant on wildlife surveys. As a result, there exists a range of methods that have been developed specifically with the aim of estimating animal abundance and animal distribution. Traditionally data have been collected by humans and are often modelled as a ‘snapshot’ of the system at a particular moment in time. However, we often have more information available to us such as a precise time of observation.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Ceramics

Nanostructured Materials for Applications in Fuel Cells, Heterogeneous Catalysis and Photocatalysis

University of St Andrews

About the Project In the Baker group we are always looking for excellent, well-motivated scientists to carry out PhD research with us. Our main activities relate to the preparation of nanostructured and functional materials for applications as active components in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs), heterogeneous catalysts and photocatalysts.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Applied Statistics

Obesity, Prostate Cancer and DNA methylation

University of St Andrews

About the Project Prostate Cancer is the most common cancer in men in the US and UK. Obesity is a known risk factor for many cancers and levels of obesity are increasing. Despite the disease and potential risk factor being so common, the evidence for obesity as a risk factor for prostate cancer is inconsistent – as evidenced by a recent meta-analysis (despite the meta-analysis itself not being entirely satisfactory).

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Artificial Intelligence

PRIMED for Medincinal Chemistry (PRecision, AI Informed, Molecular EDiting)

University of St Andrews

About the Project The PhD focusses on innovative precision molecule editing and diversification. PRIMED combines late stage enzymatic halogenation with synthetic diversification of aryl and alyl halides. The formation of C-X bonds (where X is F, Cl, Br, or I) is of great importance to the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. The introduction of a halogen into a molecule can be used to modulate bioactivity, bioavailability and metabolic stability.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Organic Chemistry

PhD in Asymmetric Synthesis and developing Lewis base-mediated transformations

University of St Andrews

About the Project Our research is currently directed towards developing catalytic methods for the promotion of a range of synthetic transformations with varying applications in asymmetric synthesis.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Inorganic Chemistry

PhD position in synthetic inorganic/organometallic chemistry: New reactivity from unusual molecular main group compounds

University of St Andrews

About the Project The chemistry of the main group elements has seen some remarkable advances in the past years. A range of highly unusually bonded main group compounds from the s- and p-block of the periodic table has been prepared in recent years that has led to some surprising reactivity being discovered including unusual activation reactions of organic molecules and relatively inert industrially relevant small molecules.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Applied Statistics

Stochastic modelling and inference for live-cell gene expression time-series data to unravel the mechanisms of stem cell differentiation

University of St Andrews

About the Project This project will develop statistical methodology for noisy time-series data and stochastic computational models to analyse live-cell imaging data provided by the lab of our collaborator Dr Cerys Manning at the University of Manchester. Live-cell imaging is a powerful technique for real-time observation of the activity of genes in single cells.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Applied Statistics

Stochastic simulation, analysis, and inference of non-linear dynamical systems

University of St Andrews

About the Project This project aims to create a new framework for studying the dynamics of systems that exhibit periodic behaviour or multiple equilibria. These types of dynamic behaviours are common in various fields such as molecular biology and epidemiology. Examples include the circadian clocks, oscillatory responses to stress signals, and the specialisation of stem cells, as well as epidemic oscillations driven by public awareness.

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Applied Statistics

Understanding the uncertainty in the decomposition of cancer gene or protein expression data

University of St Andrews

About the Project Many tools exist that will take the expression profile of a tumour sample and decompose that signal into components arising from different tissue types (e.g. tumour cells, benign cells, immune cells, fibroblasts, stromal cells etc.).

Location
St Andrews, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)