GTA PhD Studentship: Natural and Built Environment
The Department of Natural and Built Environment within the College of Social Sciences and Arts at Sheffield Hallam University intends to appoint one Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) on a 3.5 year fixed-term studentship from February 2021. Graduate Teaching Assistants undertake specific teaching duties associated with student experience, in addition to working towards a PhD qualification. Please see the additional details below about our research within Natural and Built Environment and a list of potential projects for which we are inviting applications. As a minimum, applicants should possess a 1st or 2.1 Honours degree in a related discipline. A Master degree in a relevant subject area would be an advantage. Closing date: 12 noon Thursday 19th November 2020

The GTA studentships are for a period of three and a half years, subject to satisfactory progress, and will include full UK/EU tuition fees and an annual stipend of £15,285.

This studentship scheme aims to develop highly skilled postgraduate researchers who are well prepared to enter a career in academia or research. The scheme provides a PhD scholarship that incorporates additional training and professional development, with the intention of providing opportunities for PhD students to develop a rounded academic research focussed portfolio.

For these studentships, the PhD students will be registered for a Doctorate, alongside which they will contribute to up to 180 hours per academic year of support for teaching related activity in their respective specialist area within Natural and Built Environment. This activity forms part of the scholarship award and there is no additional payment for it.

Currently enrolled students are not eligible to apply.

Applicants should hold a 1st or 2.1 honours degree in a relevant discipline to the PhD area for which they are applying.

The start date for the studentship will be February 2021.

International applicants

International applicants please note that the bursary will cover only the Home/EU fee. The shortfall between the Home and Overseas fee must be covered by the student for the 3.5 year duration of the studentship.

We also have a mandatory English language requirement of IELTs 7, or equivalent language qualification. This qualification should have been taken within the last two years, with a score of at least 7 in all test areas.

The Department of Natural and Built Environment

Within the Department of Natural and Built Environment research is carried out across the three subject areas of:

Architecture

Built Environment

Geography, Environment and Planning

An extensive range of research is undertaken within these subject groups. We aim to provide high quality research which is useful, relevant and has impact for service users, policy makers, managers, and practitioners. We encourage research that is practitioner/researcher led and collaborative as well as inclusive, focusing on topical issues of significance to the broad natural and built environment research community and wider society.

We have a strong tradition of research that investigates the sustainability of natural and built environments - including responses to the climate emergency - integrating leading-edge multidisciplinary research into past, present and future environmental and socio-technical systems, and human interaction with them, with transformative, applied research into the cultures and capacities of sustainability. This includes understanding, planning and designing for human adaptation, mitigation, and prevention of environmental change, and how this could become a driver for a more equal and resilient society

We have experience of working with a broad range of organisations, including statutory bodies, policy makers, local councils, voluntary and community organisations, charities, and government agencies. We have expertise in a broad range of research approaches and methodologies, practice based, evaluation, case studies, action research, participatory methods, quantitative and qualitative methods.

In collaboration with the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, our subject area (Architecture, Planning and Built Environment: Unit of Assessment 16) was ranked first among 23 modern universities and eleventh of all UK universities in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 exercise. Over 80% of our research was assessed as "world leading" (4*) or "internationally excellent" (3*).

Within our department a rich variety of research takes place. For this Graduate Teaching Assistant position, we are seeking individual responses to potential projects as outlined below. Please contact each project teams for specific discussions around each potential project.

Themes: Critical spatial practice, co-design

Project: The role of autonomous publishing as spatial practice

We seek proposals for practice-based research exploring how critical and emancipatory forms of spatial practice can be generated through autonomous publishing practices. The successful applicant will work alongside the interdisciplinary design collective RESOLVE, combining architecture, engineering, art and technology to address social challenges. Their work generates physical and systematic intervention, working with local communities as stakeholders in long-term projects.

A successful proposal will identify possible communities and indicate key issues of concern, offering a context where the processes and value of collaborative development of knowledge and publishing can be investigated. You will be working as a spatial practitioner amongst other autonomous publishing practices and literary practitioners (writers, poets, performers, theatre makers, etc.) exploring potential for new processes and forms of dissemination. Publishing is broadly defined ( ie. paper, digital, aural and structural) as we seek to understand how dimensional, temporal and material forms and practices affect the experience and co-production of space.

Supervisory team: : Dr Julia Udall (dsju1@exchange.shu.ac.uk ), Dr Sam Vardy, Dr Becky Shaw (Art & Design Research Centre) in collaboration with RESOLVE

Themes: Design for wellbeing, health, inclusive design, co-design

Project: Designing Care at the End of Life

This project aims to explore the design of palliative care facilities and services, within hospital environments, the community and the home. In particular, the project seeks to investigate how palliative care provision might be redesigned to better respond to current needs (including post Covid19), constrains and research evidence base. The project will focus on the physical spaces of palliative care provision – both in dedicated facilities and in the community/home – exploring how they might be (re)designed to reflect current and emerging understandings of best practice. Building on knowledge from recent evidence-based research and best practice, the project will generate a range of designs and design guidelines to inform current and future practice as well as policy.

The project is in collaboration with Lab4Living at Sheffield Hallam University and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

Supervisory team: Dr Cristina Cerulli (c.cerulli@shu.ac.uk) with colleagues at Lab4Living

Themes: Climate change, hydrology, scenario building, co-design

Project: Radical water futures: modelling and mapping Sheffield’s water landscapes under extreme socio-ecological change

New UK legislation post-Brexit and recent declarations of Climate Emergency predict significant future changes in agricultural landscape management. Rewilding, tree planting and modification of catchment hydrology are mooted as ‘nature-based solutions’ for flood management, carbon sequestration and biodiversity.

Sheffield City Council and partners currently coordinate Natural Flood Management in the Upper Don, aiming to mitigate downstream flooding, through solutions modelled on existing landscapes under conservative climate scenarios. Such pragmatic approaches are essential in practical decision-making but limited in informing broader discussions about more radical approaches such as extensive rewilding, or in engaging stakeholders at all levels with envisioning preparing for more extreme environmental futures: heat, drought, deluge, or significant agricultural or socio-economic system change.

This project will combine hydrological modelling techniques with scenarios generated by environmental humanities and science fictions to develop a methodology for quantifying, visualising and communicating these ‘radical hydrological futures’ for the Don Catchment.

Supervisory team: Dr Jon Bridge (jwb0142@exchange.shu.ac.uk), Dr Kev Spence, Dr Harriet Tarlo (Humanities)

Themes: Sustainable construction materials, reuse, plastic waste, concrete

Project: Minimizing the environmental impact of discarded plastic through reuse in concrete applications

This project aims at fighting the climate crisis by limiting the environmental impact of two major contributors: waste plastic, which represents around 80% of the plastic produced worldwide and concrete, which is responsible for about 8% of the world CO2.

The proposed research will investigate the use of selected plastic debris construction elements made of concrete. Several studies in the literature, as well as the current authors pilot study, confirmed already that microplastic and shredded plastic can be used as cement or aggregate replacement whilst the discarded plastic bottles can be used as void formers in concrete elements such as kerbs, block walls or hollow slabs. However, due to the variability of the waste plastic, particularly with regards to shape/size and contamination levels, further work is required towards optimising the design of such solutions. This research project will seek Industry collaboration and involve material testing on concrete specimens.

Supervisory team: Dr Andreea Serbescu (andreea.serbescu@ shu.ac.uk), Dr Kev Spence, Professor Liz Laycock

Discussion and selection event

For general enquiries regarding this post, please contact Dr Cristina Cerulli (c.cerulli@shu.ac.uk) or the PGR administration team: ssa-Social-economic-pgr-mb@exchange.shu.ac.uk

For specific queries about the potential projects outlined, please contact the supervisory team lead directly.

To apply for the post and studentship we are asking you to submit a two-page research statement and draft research proposal in response to and complementing your chosen project. We are interested in your motivation, your individual reaction to our proposed projects, how you might approach the one you choose, what do you imagine being the opportunities and challenges.

The proposed selection event for these studentships is planned for the week commencing on 07th December 2020 and will comprise of an online interview and presentation. You will be expected to prepare a 10-minute presentation on how you think you might apply your previous experience and expertise to your chosen PhD project and broader research area.

Application Guidance

To apply for the GTA PhD studentship for the Department of Natural and Built Environment, please submit the following:

a two-page research statement and draft research proposal around your chosen project;

the names and contact details of two academic referees;

copies of qualifications, certificates and/or results transcripts;

proof of English language ability, where English is not your first language;

copies of your passport and any relevant visas, for international applicants.

Applicants should email a postgraduate application form (including their research proposal in section 9) to ssa-Social-economic-pgr-mb@exchange.shu.ac.uk by the closing date: 12 noon Thursday 19th November 2020

Late applications will not be accepted.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

Equality, diversity and inclusion are essential to our academic and business strengths. We believe that excellence comes through recognising the value of each individual.

Sheffield Hallam welcomes applications from all candidates irrespective of age, pregnancy and maternity, disability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief, or marital or civil partnership status.