Learn more about entry requirements

International students
We accept a range of qualifications from different countries - learn more about international entry requirements 

Standard English language requirements apply

When clicking on the Apply Now button you will be directed to an application specifically designed for the programme you wish to apply for where you will create an account with the University application system and submit your application and supporting documents online. Further information regarding how to apply online can be found on the How to apply pages

The School offers postgraduate research opportunities leading to PhD degrees across the whole range of its research activities, with funding coming from a variety of sources, including national research councils, School scholarships and industry.

Postgraduate students joining the School benefit from a thriving research community, expert supervision, dedicated training programmes and the opportunity to participate in research seminars and discussions with academic staff. All postgraduate students are provided with dedicated workspaces and have access to excellent computing and laboratory facilities.

Related links

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences website 

• Cultural and political geography; the symbolic role of space and nature in the construction of nationhood and national identities, particularly in Russia, Germany and the United States; the history and current renaissance of geopolitics; space and neo-conservatism after the Cold War; the political aesthetics of landscape representation in the visual arts; landscape as a genre in Stalinist Socialist Realism (1930s–1950s).
  Contact: Professor Mark Bassin
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 3878
  Email: m.bassin@bham.ac.uk
• Environmental hydrology, particularly floodplain wetlands, permeable catchments, soil-water fluxes in macro-porous soils, and hydroecology of tropical floodplains.
  Contact: Dr Chris Bradley
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 8097
  Email: c.bradley@bham.ac.uk
• Service sector geographies; business & professional services; business knowledges; offshoring; expertise-driven economies, emotional labour and various forms of service work; manufacturing competitiveness; industrial design; third sector geographies; alternative forms of finance; sustainable urban development.
  Contact: Dr Chris Bradley
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 8097
  Email: c.bradley@bham.ac.uk
• Service sector geographies; business & professional services; business knowledges; offshoring; expertise-driven economies, emotional labour and various forms of service work; manufacturing competitiveness; industrial design; third sector geographies; alternative forms of finance; sustainable urban development.
  Contact: Professor John Bryson
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5549
  Email: j.r.bryson@bham.ac.uk
• Geographies of energy (especially: social equity, security of supply, oil/gas pipelines, climate change mitigation and adaptation); Post-industrial urban geography and demography – gentrification and reurbanisation; Architectural geography, flexibility and the built environment of the inner-city more generally; Geographical focus on Southern, Central and Eastern Europe.
  Contact: Dr Stefan Buzar (Bouzarovski)
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 2943
  Email: s.bouzarovski@bham.ac.uk
• Numerical modelling of micro- and meso-scale meteorological and climatological processes; urban heat island and climate change; air pollution and climate in urban street canyons; computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling of wind around buildings; large-eddy simulation of atmospheric turbulence and dispersion of air pollutants; boundary-layer meteorology; air pollution meteorology.
  Contact: Dr Xiaoming Cai
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5533
  Email: x.cai@bham.ac.uk
• The impact of weather and climate change on the built environment, with particular reference to transport.
  Contact: Dr Lee Chapman
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 7435
  Email: l.chapman@bham.ac.uk
• Environmental governance (particularly how formal and informal rules, processes and behaviours within organisations affect environmental policymaking/environmental policy outcomes); the evolution of EU environmental policy; the constraints upon and opportunities for territorial economic development in the UK and Mediterranean states; EU political procedures and policy-making; and the interdisciplinary relationships between political science and political geography.
  Contact: Dr Julian Clark
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 6262/5544 (main office)
  Email: j.r.a.clark@bham.ac.uk
• Internationalisation of services, , with particular reference to business and professional services; services and economic/urban restructuring in East and Southeast Asia; services trade and investment and the global economy.
  Contact: Professor Peter Daniels
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5537
  Email: p.w.daniels@bham.ac.uk
• Public understanding and experience of environment and health risks; environmental inequalities/environmental justice in terms of how these notions may be conceptualised and how inequalities in environmental experiences come about; older people's practices with respect to nature, local environment and sustainability; urban environmental policy and environmental service provision.
  Contact: Dr Rosie Day
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5531/5544 (main office)
  Email: r.day@bham.ac.uk
• Quaternary environmental change, particularly pollen and non-siliceous micro and environmental archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean; tephrology, in tephrochronology, tephra geochemistry and the impact of volcanic eruptions in distal areas.
  Contact: Dr Warren Eastwood
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 8079
  Email: w.j.eastwood@bham.ac.uk
• Speleothems and climate change; aqueous geochemistry in relation to weathering reactions and hydrology in glacial and riverine environments (Iceland, Himalayas); experimental studies of mineral-water interactions; carbonate geochemistry in ancient glacial environments.
  Contact: Professor Ian Fairchild
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 4181
  Email: i.j.fairchild@bham.ac.uk
• Hydroclimatology, particularly synoptic to micro-climatological impacts on surface waters; meltwater generation and drainage within glacierised basins; techniques for environmental data analysis and simulation modelling.
  Contact: Dr David Hannah
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 6925
  Email: d.m.hannah@bham.ac.uk
• Urban regeneration; qualitative GIS; mobile methods; sustainable urban development; performativity and non-representational theory.
  Contact: Dr Phil Jones
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5546
  Email: p.i.jones@bham.ac.uk
• Remote sensing of global precipitation; precipitation characteristics and comparison with surface rainfall measurements.
  Contact: Dr Chris Kidd
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 8146
  Email: c.kidd@bham.ac.uk
• Fluvial processes, especially river erosion and channel hydraulics; Fine sediment transport dynamics in river systems; Urban river water quality; Recent climate change and river floods; Environmental Impact Analysis applied to rivers.|
  Contact: Dr Damian Lawler
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5532
  Email: d.m.lawler@bham.ac.uk
• Freshwater ecology; invertebrate ecology; algal biodiversity; biofilm development; trophic interactions; food webs.
  Contact: Dr Mark Ledger
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5540
  Email: m.e.ledger@bham.ac.uk
• Hydroecology of alpine and Arctic streams, riverine community deveopment following glacial recession and disturbance; the ecology of glacier-fed streams.
  Contact: Dr Sandy Milner
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 8098
  Email: a.m.milner@bham.ac.uk
• Post-Soviet transition (the spatialities of changing social and economic circumstances) and the historical and cultural geography of Soviet Russia; geographies of imprisonment; geographies of HIV/AIDS.
  Contact: Dr Dominique Moran
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 8013
  Email: d.moran@bham.ac.uk
• Environmental risk decision-making, including public engagement and development of analytic-deliberative processes; understanding public risk concerns and risk communication; understanding expert risk cultures and their impact on decision-making.
  Contact: Professor Judith Petts
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 8143
  Email: j.i.petts@bham.ac.uk
• Biogeochemistry of river and wetland ecosystems in the context of diffuse pollution control and climate change; experimental and field studies; microbial ecology related to nitrogen and carbon cycling.
  Contact: Professor Gilles Pinay
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5518/5544 (main office)
  Email: g.pinay@bham.ac.uk
• The social and economic costs of transition in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine; the development of coping tactics in response to economic marginalisation; state-society relations and welfare reform in post-Soviet regions; the role of social capital and informal economies in negotiating economic uncertainty in everyday life; the post-release experience of Gulag survivors; northern restructuring and the use of geography as a welfare tool.
  Contact: Dr John Round
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5530
  Email: j.round@bham.ac.uk
• Palaeoecology, with reference to invertebrates; palaeolimnological studies of human impact on water bodies; impact assessment and conservation; biogeographical analysis of plant and animal distributions.
  Contact: Dr Jonathan Sadler
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5776
  Email: j.p.sadler@bham.ac.uk
• Fluvial sedimentology and geomorphology; geophysical techniques.
  Contact: Dr Greg Sambrook-Smith
  Tel: +44 (0)121 415 8023
  Email: g.smith.4@bham.ac.uk
• Social and quantitative geography: racial, ethnic, multi-racial/mixed ethnic and religious communities and identities; census geographies and the social use/misuse of statistics in Britain and America.
  Contact: Dr Jo Southworth
  Tel: +44 (0)121 415 8022
  Email: j.southworth@bham.ac.uk
• The dynamics of local economies; the theory of the firm; enterprise and entrepreneurship; ‘new regionalism’ and endogenous growth theory; manufacturing industry and labour market dynamics.
  Contact: Professor Michael Taylor
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5535
  Email: m.j.taylor@bham.ac.uk
• Cultural Climatology, Atmospheric Management, Road Weather Forecasting, Environmental Art & Adaptation to Climate Change.
  Contact: Professor John E Thornes
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5556
  Email: j.e.thornes@bham.ac.uk
• Renewable energy; social and societal aspects of deployment; Spatial analysis in environmental policy evaluation; the spatial planning of multifunctional land use and ecosystem services delivery.
  Contact: Dr Dan van der Horst
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5525
  Email: d.vanderhorst@bham.ac.uk
• Past and future climate change; statistical modelling and numerical simulations from regional to global scales.
  Contact: Dr Marin Widmann
  Tel: +44 (0)121 414 5520
  Email: m.widmann@bham.ac.uk