PhD Projects

Many of our self-funded doctoral students come to Worcester with their own project ideas. However, our Research Groups and Centres have put together some ideas for potential PhD projects that they would be interested to supervise around their particular areas of expertise.        

If you are interested in one of these projects, please contact the lead supervisor to have a chat about your interests and the project idea. If you then wish to the apply for this particular project, please go to our Course Search and select the relevant research degree programme area.

An application link can then be found towards the bottom of each programme page. In your application, please remember to clearly highlight that you are applying for one of our un-funded MPhil/PhD project ideas so we can be sure to remove this from the website, should your application be successful.

Arts and Health Research Group

• Addressing the Psycho-Emotional Impact of Climate Anxiety on Children and Young People through Illustration
• Arts-led Approaches to Trauma, Memory and Healing
• Reframing Critical and Socially Engaged Arts Practices from a Creative Health/Health Humanities Perspective
• Representations of illness and/or disability and/or the National Health Service in British film and television

Association for Dementia Studies

• Adoption of proprietary home and community automation technologies in support of ageing-in-place
• Measuring the cost-effectiveness of Meeting Centres
• Pain management for people living with dementia in Extra Care

Coach Developer and Performance Analyst Research Group

• Developing Analysts: Dr John Francis (DoS), Professor Don Vinson
• Sports Coaching, Positive Youth Development and Vulnerable Young People: Professor Don Vinson (DoS), Dr John Francis

Constitutions Rights and Justice Research Group

• Constitutional reform and the case for and against codification

Digital Innovation and Intelligent Systems Research Group

• Determining and understanding digital exclusion
• Determining cyber attacks by using machine learning to detect message anomalies

Health Professions Education and Practice

• Pre-registration health care students' experiences of the safe learning environment charter (Hope & Norman)

Human Performance Research Group

• Basketball footwear: Is it a case of style over substance?: Dr Darren Cooper (DoS), Dr Christopher Holland, Dr Alejandro Vaquera
• Knee Injuries in Females: Dr Christopher Holland (DoS), Dr Darren Cooper, Dr Kostas Papadopulos (tbc), Dr Alejandro Vaquera
• MSK Healthcare in the workplace: Dr Christopher Holland (DoS), Dr Darren Cooper, Professor Derek Peters (tbc)
• New Zealand Blackcurrant intake on metabolic and cardiovascular responses: Dr Matthew Cook (DoS), Professor Derek Peters

Inclusive Sport and Physical Activity

• Heat Mitigation Management in Females: Dr Jessica Mee (DoS), Dr Ben Duncan

Inclusion by Design Research Group

• Application of Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in post compulsory education

Inclusive Sport and Physical Activity Research Group

• Men’s lives: the consequences of living with high levels of drive for muscularity
• Nationalism, populist politics and sport migrations: heroes or villains?

Interpersonal Relationships and Wellbeing Research Group

• “Getting On With It!”: Ensuring Safe and Compassionate Supervision and Thinking Spaces for Practitioners in Child Protection Practice
• How care-experienced individuals define and achieve career success
• "Please take us seriously!": examining the help and support needs of male victims of domestic abuse
• Pro-Environmental Behaviour and Life History Theory
• Responsible virtual assistant for effective marketing communication
• Training emotional competency in the workplace: Does ‘one size’ really ‘fit all’?

Living Well with Long Term Conditions Research Group

• Clinical Significance and Diagnostic Accuracy of Special Tests in Rotator Cuff Related Shoulder Pain
• Living with allergy during the transition to secondary school    
• Routine Monitoring of Depression and Anxiety in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
• The impact of extended waiting times for treatment and investigation in people Long-term conditions

Molecular Plant and Microbial Biosciences Research Unit

• Bidirectional mobile sRNA signalling in pea-downy mildew interactions
• Developing synthetic microbial communities for the control of pea downy mildew

Participant Centred Learning in Management Education Research Group

• Examining Adaptations in Case Study Development to Enhance Participant Centred Learning in Management Education

Social Pedagogy Research Group

• What Drives Social Pedagogy?

Social Psychology of Education Research Group

• Mapping the influence of teachers’ peer relationships on retention in rural schools

Sustainable Environment Research Group

• Crop Raiding in Ethiopia: Professor Alan Dixon (DoS), Dr John Dutton
• UAVs for mapping habitat: Professor Ian Maddock (DoS), Dr Fleur Visser

Worcester Biomedical Research Group

• In silico modelling of endocannabinoid evolution
• Prognostic Markers in Bladder Cancer
• The BCAT1 CXXC motif and oncogenesis in acute myeloid leukaemia
• The INDICO-II Study – Effects of body composition and dietary improvement on cell membrane dynamics and their relationship with the aetiology of type II diabetes