Deadline: Midnight (BST) 05/01/23
Interviews: 26 and 27/01/23
Lead Supervisor
Dr Johan Oldekop
Project Description
Scholars have devoted much attention to deforestation, yet processes driving the reverse phenomenon – reforestation – and their socioeconomic implications are poorly understood. SFT will conduct ground-breaking research to better understand how reforestation drivers (e.g., changes in migration, livelihoods or forest governance) affect forests and the communities that depend on them. SFT is a five-year, £1.7 million project funded by a UKRI Research Frontier grant based within the Global Development Institute in the School of Environment, Education and Development. The project will study the changing nature of forest cover and human development at unprecedented scale and detail in Mexico, Brazil, India, and Nepal and possibly expand to other countries.
The three PhD students will develop a collective programme of impactful and world-leading research to support communities, governments, and practitioners achieve simultaneous improvements in forest cover and human development. Your research will help overcome existing conceptual, methodological and data limitations by combining public socioeconomic (e.g., national census) and environmental data (satellite-derived forest data) with statistical approaches that increase the causal inference of analyses by emulating randomized experiments (quasi-experimental methods). Where applicable, your work will complement these quantitative methods with analyses of secondary qualitative data and targeted key informant interviews, in particular to explore the wider political economy of reforestation.
Person specification
Candidates must have strong quantitative skills and experience of handling and analysing datasets from diverse sources (e.g., remote sensing data and/or representative household surveys), acquired through relevant postgraduate training (e.g., in political science, economics, or geography). Additional research training will be available to support further development and expertise in key analytical elements (e.g., econometrics, spatial statistics and/or remote sensing). Experience of working in one or more of the case countries and relevant language skills (e.g., Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi and/or Nepali) would be very beneficial but not essential.
Eligibility criteria
Academic:
In the majority of cases, eligible candidates will have undertaken an undergraduate course and/or Master's course at a recognised higher education institution and will have achieved a minimum of Bachelor's at 2.1 plus Master's at Merit.
English language:
Candidates whose first language is not English require one of the following:
- IELTS test minimum scores - 7 overall, 7 writing, 6 other sections
- TOEFL (internet based) test minimum scores - 100 overall, 25 writing, 22 other sections
- Pearson Test of English (PTE) minimum scores - 66 overall, 66 writing, 59 other sections
Application procedure
The application deadline will be Midnight (GMT) 05/01/23. All supporting documents must be received by the deadline and sent as a zip file to pgr-seedfunding@manchester.ac.uk, using ‘Sustainable Forest Transitions (PhD)' as the email subject.
The application must include:
- Full CV, including a breakdown of your grades to date.
- Personal statement of maximum 700 words indicating why you would like to undertake this studentship and explaining how your focus, experience, and skills link to the research outlined above.
- Example of a piece of academic writing produced by the applicant of up to 5,000 words (applicants may consider submitting two shorter pieces if these deal separately with conceptual and empirical analyses). This may be an academic essay or chapter(s) from a dissertation, in which case, an abstract or introduction outlining the context/aims/research questions of the study must also be included
- Names and contact details of two academic referees who can comment on the applicant's suitability for PhD study and to undertake the advertised project.
Further information
If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please contact Dr. Johan Oldekop (johan.oldekop@manchester.ac.uk)
Residential eligibility:
This scholarship is open to international students.
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