Want to become a Leverhulme ‘Space for Nature’ Doctoral Scholar this September?
We are very aware that securing a PhD scholarship tends to be a competitive process, with most applicants holding a Master’s degree. We are committed to trying to remove this significant financial barrier to accessing postgraduate research. We are now offering fully funded MSc studentships at the University of Kent, as a pathway onto to a PhD (subject to satisfactory completion of the MSc), particularly targeted towards individuals from underserved backgrounds. For instance, we are really keen to support students from ethnic minority and/or lower-income backgrounds, asylum seekers or refugees, people who have suffered significant educational disruption (other than the covid pandemic), and individuals who are estranged from both their primary carers or have been or are young carers themselves.
Starting in September 2024, we are offering people the opportunity to become a Leverhulme ‘Space for Nature’ Doctoral Scholar by studying either a taught MSc in Conservation Science or MSc by Research in Biodiversity Management. All scholars must undertake a relevant research project with a member of DICE staff (please scroll down for more details of staff research interests). You can decide which MSc programme you are best suited to in collaboration with DICE staff after you have applied for the scholarship. If you have any further questions, please contact us via email: LHScholars@kent.ac.uk.
Scholarship value
The MSc and PhD scholarships include an annual stipend (equivalent to the Research Councils UK National Minimum Doctoral Stipend; the 2024/25 rate is £19,237, which is not taxed income). Tuition fees are covered at the home student rate. The PhD scholarship comes with a £10,000 research and training fund.
Eligibility
This award is open home students. To be classed as a home student, candidates must meet the following criteria and the associated residency requirements:
Criteria
How to apply
Please apply for the scholarships by sending your covering letter and CV to LHScholars@kent.ac.uk and filling out our equality, diversity and inclusivity questionnaire via this link
These tasks must be completed by Monday 1st July 2024 at 23.55. For informal enquiries about potential research projects, please contact directly via email the relevant staff member from the list below.
Jake Bicknell
In tropical regions other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) may make up part of multi-use landscapes that combine, for example, sustainable food production practices and natural resource extractive industries (e.g. forestry, mining). To get to 30% conservation areas, habitat and species restoration and recovery may play a key role in the process. The purpose of this research is to explore land use planning in systems and landscapes that adopt best practice natural resource extraction and food production, combined with tailored ecological recovery. In particular, the research will test the idea of a new system of ‘rotational land use planning’ whereby the present and future fate of zones within the landscape are explicitly reflected in planning – with a particular emphasis on habitat and species restoration after extractive use or sustainable agriculture/fisheries.
Suitable geographical locations for this study include Latin-America and the Caribbean. In these areas land ownership varies between state land, community or indigenous land, and private land. Therefore local knowledge will greatly benefit the research.
Zoe Davies
Other effective conservation measures (OECMs) have the potential to be a more socially and economically equitable form of conservation that can benefit local communities in a myriad of ways, as well as enhancing biodiversity within multifunctional landscapes. There is also the possibility of unintended negative consequences. With this in mind, it is important to explore public acceptance/understanding of different forms of OECM and land owner barriers/enablers to implementation. Other key questions include: How can OECMs deliver on biodiversity goals, as well as net zero climate commitments? What opportunities and challenges do new technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous systems present for monitoring and managing OECMs? How can we deploy intangible (historical, creative and cultural) values to better understand positive OECM delivery? Can OECMs help preserve human sense-of-place as well as biodiversity, and how might these interact? What human health and wellbeing benefits or determents may arise from OECMs? The answers to these questions are likely to vary according to the type of OECM, which can range from privately owned domestic gardens and transport infrastructure initiatives (e.g. green bridges), through to large-scale (re)wilded landscapes. I am keen to support students who want to collaborate with innovative nature recovery NGOs across England (e.g. Woodland Trust, Kent Wildlife Trust, Weald to Waves).
Daniel Ingram
Broadly, I am interested in exploring the possibilities of (re)wilded landscapes as other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) in the UK, and potentially Europe. Research could target questions around this topic for terrestrial or aquatic (inland waters, coastal, and marine) ecosystems. For aquatic ecosystems, research is needed on whether OECMs protect and enhance river biodiversity, and whether aquatic ecosystems would be adequately protected in current progress towards the goal of protecting 30% of land for biodiversity by 2030. Given the broad range of activities that could be considered (re)wilding and potentially be included as an OECM, research is also needed in this context to explore the possibilities for nature-based economies to sustain OECM management and governance. Further work is also needed on the interactions between types of area-based conservation measures and human sense-of-place, wellbeing, and cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values.
Jesse O’Hanley
Conservation planning in multifunctional landscapes necessitates explicit consideration of various environmental and socioeconomic services derived from different potential land uses. In forested areas, a particular concern is how to efficiently allocate land to commercial harvesting (aka production forest) versus the protection of biodiversity (aka protection forest) and water supply/quality (aka catchment safeguard forest), all of which are important for the wellbeing of local communities and the environment. To that end, systematic conservation planning provides an ideal tool for optimising the allocation of forest use types in an objective and coherent fashion. Working with partners in Vietnam, we are looking for a prospective student to develop novel multi-objective, spatial optimisation models to help guide forest land use planning. An identified challenge will be to ensure that different forest types are clustered into one or more compact and contiguous patches.
Wildlife corridors play in important role in conservation by connecting protected areas together. They allow animals to more feely disperse between otherwise isolated populations, thus reducing the likelihood of inbreeding it negative effects on genetic fitness, allowing for the re-establishment of populations that have become extirpated, and generally supporting metapopulation survival. In heavily developed areas like the UK, designing wildlife corridors can be a highly complex task. In part, this is because protected areas are typically dispersed across the landscape, thus necessitating the placement many bespoke corridors, rather than a few. Even more problematic is the fact that anthropogenic barriers are invariably present within the landscape, such as large, multilane roads, which reduce or block animal dispersal. To help design corridors in the most effective way, the proposed project will look at formulating and testing novel mathematical optimisation models and solution techniques to connect multiple protected areas in the presence of dispersal barriers. Multiple approaches to the problem can be considered, including (i) configuring corridors to avoid barriers where possible and (ii) implementation of measures to mitigate barriers, such as constructing wildlife overpasses and underpasses.
Bob Smith
Every county in England is currently developing a Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS), producing habitat maps that will be updated every three to ten years and underpin all local spatial planning. The LNRS approach could become an exemplar of a stakeholder driven process for designing and implementing inclusive conservation solutions in multifunctional landscapes. Each LNRS will be tailored to its local conditions, building on a range of stakeholder input. This provides an excellent opportunity to look at how different groups interpret and implement the same spatial prioritisation process in terms of the stakeholders involved, the priorities identified, the data used, and the priority mapping methodologies implemented. It also provides the opportunity to investigate the extent to which these different local-level spatial plans fit together to produce robust ecological networks and meet regional and national targets for nature recovery, tree planting and access to nature. This project will involve learning the systematic conservation planning approach for designing nature recovery networks, as well as developing expertise in collecting and analysing quantitative and qualitative data. It will be a collaboration with Natural England and the South East Nature Partnership, and involve working with LNRS partners across England.
Joseph Tzanopoulos
European islands are hotspots of biological and cultural diversity, but also particularly vulnerable to tourism development and uncontrolled land-use changes. Projected climate and land-use change will impact on islands’ biodiversity but also on ecosystem services and on the quality of life of island inhabitants. Although ecosystem services (ES) assessments have been carried out worldwide in different geographical areas, islands are still underrepresented. Still we know little about ES supplies, flows and demands and their spatio-temporal variability. Moreover, we do not know what the influence, and value, of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) will be. Current land-use and environmental policies often overlook ways one can experience ES, and whose living situation may have worsened or benefited due to the targeted exploitation of natural resources. This interdisciplinary project would aim to:
The results will be synthesised using a sustainability assessment approach to provide an integrated ES assessment of future landscape management scenarios
