BISCA PhD Studentships

The Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA) is proud to present its inaugural cohort of PhD researchers. Our studentship programme is designed to foster world-leading, transdisciplinary research that addresses the most urgent challenges of the climate crisis. By uniting diverse expertise from across the University’s Colleges—spanning Engineering, Government, Bioscience, and Environmental Sciences—we move beyond narrow technical solutions to consider the complex cultural, behavioural, and institutional dimensions of global change.

This interdisciplinary approach allows our researchers to collaborate across traditional academic boundaries, integrating scientific modelling with socio-political analysis and educational reform. Each student is supported by a comprehensive research and training grant to facilitate high-impact engagement and international collaboration. This synergy reflects BISCA’s core mission: to place sustainability at the heart of research and ensure that evidence-based, cross-sectoral insights translate into real-world transformation and policy influence.

Meet Our PhD Students

My research project focuses on building our understanding of how climate intervention strategies such as solar radiation modification (SRM) could impact large scale utilization of renewable energy.  As climate change intensifies, understanding the impacts of potential response strategies is imperative to the development of responsible policy decisions. In line with this need, this project aims to move beyond pure evidence generation to consider socio-political dynamics including the impacts of the use of SRM on global justice of renewable development.

This study seeks to understand how decarbonisation policies translate ‘on the ground’ through process tracing the implementation of EU- and nationally driven climate policies in Ida-Virumaa. The region represents a site where aims to establish climate justice intersects with existing socio-economic and political injustice, characterised by high unemployment, social marginalisation, ethnic and linguistic divisions, and deep economic dependence on the oil shale industry.

The research explores the factors that facilitate or hinder policy implementation, the role of multi-level governance in shaping outcomes, and the extent to which Estonia’s experience can inform climate policy implementation in less favourable political, economic, or institutional contexts. The motivation for this study lies in understanding how decarbonisation and Just Transition policies function in practice within regions explicitly selected by the EU as priority sites for intervention. Estonia’s relatively high level of alignment with EU regulatory frameworks and governance norms makes it a useful case for examining how climate policy is translated into implementation under comparatively favourable institutional conditions. By analysing how policy is enacted in such a context, this study aims to contribute to broader debates on the implementation of decarbonisation policy.

The textile industry is one of the world’s most polluting sectors, driven by fast fashion, resource-intensive manufacturing, and inefficient end-of-life practices. NatureTex brings together green chemistry, sustainable engineering design, and environmental governance to reimagine how textile materials are designed, produced, and managed. The research explores how biodegradable circular materials, nature-inspired structures and advanced recycling technologies can enable the development of next-generation textiles that are functional, durable, and environmentally responsible.

The project examines circular design principles, smarter regulations, and evidence-based policy to reduce waste, curb microplastic pollution, and support more sustainable production and reuse systems. By integrating scientific, engineering, and socio-environmental perspectives, this interdisciplinary work develops practical pathways to close the textile waste loop.

The project will deliver tangible outputs, including novel biomaterials, sustainable manufacturing processes, and policy recommendations, ready for co-development with industry, government, and community partners. Aligned with BISCA’s core themes of sustainability, circularity, and climate action, this transdisciplinary, impact-driven research ensures that sustainability goals translate into real-world change, contributing to a more responsible and resilient future for textiles' circularity.

This PhD project explores how sustainability education in Higher Education can be reframed to foster transformative learning and meaningful climate action. While universities increasingly include sustainability in their curricula, this research asks a deeper question: how can education move beyond awareness raising to actively shape values, behaviours, and decision-making in ways that support long-term social and environmental change?

Bringing together various disciplines such as education, social sciences, and sustainability studies, this project will examine how different approaches to teaching, learning, and institutional practice transform how students and educators understand and engage with sustainability. By learning from varied perspectives and contexts, including indigenous knowledge and local environments; the research aims to identify strategies that embed sustainability more holistically within Higher Education.

The project aligns with BISCA’s Mission to deliver world leading, transdisciplinary research on sustainability and climate action. It moves beyond technical solutions to consider cultural, behavioural, and institutional dimensions of change, reflecting BISCA’s emphasis on real-world impact. Through collaboration with researchers, educators, and wider stakeholders, the project contributes to BISCA’s vision of “sustainability at heart”, supporting education as a key driver of climate action, policy influence, and societal transformation.

This PhD project explores how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to better understand and predict biodiversity loss in freshwater ecosystems. Working at the intersection of AI, ecology, and sustainability science, the research aims to develop advanced predictive models that capture how freshwater ecosystem respond to environmental pressures such as climate change and chemical pollution.

The project will apply advanced AI methods, including temporal graph networks and machine learning techniques, to large-scale environmental and biodiversity datasets. These data will be drawn from sources such as environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling and long-term ecological monitoring programmes. By integrating biological, chemical, and environmental information, the research will create a digital twin of freshwater ecosystems, a virtual model capable of simulating ecosystem behaviour under different future scenarios. This digital twin will be used to identify key drivers of biodiversity decline and to explore how different management, conservation, and restoration strategies may influence ecosystem trajectories over time.

The project contributes to broader goals around environmental sustainability, digital innovation, and climate resilience. By combining AI-driven modelling with ecological science, the research aims to support evidence-based decision-making for freshwater biodiversity conservation and sustainable environmental management.