The University of the West of Scotland (UWS) is seeking to attract a PhD candidate of outstanding ability and commitment to join its vibrant and growing programme of internationally excellent research. The successful applicant will receive an annual stipend (currently £15,609 per annum for three years) and payment of tuition fees (current value £4,500 per annum for 3 years).
This studentship aims to extend the healthy life years of older women by transforming their transition to retirement (TtR) through physical-activity-related social prescription. This research combines narrative psychology with design-based methods to co-create social enterprise prototypes that innovate women’s TtR. Retirement is often accompanied by a sharp downturn in wellbeing, the impacts of which vary widely by health status, gender, and socioeconomic circumstances. This project works with older women to understand what wellbeing in retirement should look like and to co-create desirable, sustainable ways of achieving it. Their stories will inform a practice framework for lifestyle intervention through social enterprise.
This project addresses UN Sustainable Development Goals at the nexus between non-communicable disease prevention, intervention sustainability, and meaningful ageing. The project’s central focus is to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases by promoting health and wellbeing. The USPs of the project involve empowering social and economic inclusion by recognising the value of older women in the promotion of social protection services. This will be achieved by taking an innovative approach to social prescription informed by human-centred design.
Using participatory approaches, the research will work with older women to design accessible and sustainable social enterprise ideas that improve the fit between health promotion practices and the TtR while maintaining older adults’ potential for employability. A signature output of the work develops an intergenerational component linking UWS sport graduates with the prototype dissemination to take them forward as potential KTPs.
The studentship is open to UK citizens and EU applicants with pre-settled or settled status. Candidates should hold a minimum of first or second class honours degree, but preferably Masters, from a university in the United Kingdom in a relevant discipline. Please quote the Project Reference number above when submitting your research proposal.
In the first instance, any informal enquiries and applications to these competitive studentships should be made by email to Dr Angela Beggan ([Email Address Removed]) . Successful applicants will be asked to submit the application through the UWS online system (https://www.uws.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/admissions-application/).
Closing date 30th June 2021
Interview July 2021
Start date 1st October 2021
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