³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ

Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD studentship to commence in October 2025. 

The PhD is a collaborative project involving the ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ and the ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ History Centre of ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ City Council. It capitalises on and contributes to events to mark the centenary of ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ’s city status in 2026. It involves a mixture of archival and practice-research work to explore the impacts and meanings of that status for the city’s communities. Through vocal work with community groups, the project will generate new archival holdings and new knowledge generated at the meeting of co-creative performing arts and archival work.

This PhD will be based in the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries at the ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ and will be supervised by Professor George Burrows, Dr Gareth Edwards (³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ History Centre) and Dr Ben Macpherson. 

The successful applicant will receive a bursary from the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme to cover tuition fees for up to four years of study and a stipend in line with the UKRI rate (£20,780 for 2025/26). Bursary recipients will also receive £1,500 p.a. for project costs/consumables.

Costs for student visa and immigration health surcharge are not covered by this bursary. For further guidance and advice visit our international and EU students ‘Visa FAQs’ page.    

This PhD will bring archival research into contact with a practice-research methodology to explore with community groups the meaning of ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ's city status in its centenary year (2026). It will expose and enrich the archival holdings of the ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ History Centre (PHC) while also contributing to them and plugging gaps in knowledge in several intersecting academic areas.

Co-creation is a relatively new area of investigation within practice research. Despite such models as the British Library’s ‘National Life Stories’, the potential of archival underpinning for practice-research investigation is not yet fully exploited. Furthermore, this project will put practice research to work in generating new knowledge and understanding about the experience and meaning of ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ and perhaps other cities to their communities. The practice-research approach is crucial to the archival challenge of embedding absent and under-represented voices at the moment of ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ’s centenary. Vocal work (broadly defined) with community groups connects the project in critical terms with interdisciplinary voice studies such as to re-voice the history and thereby engage expressions and discourses that have too often been silent within the constituent disciplines as much as the archives.

Research questions might include: What can the archives reveal of the impact of ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ’s city status over the last 100 years? How does revoicing that archive reconceive the city of ³ÉÈ˶¶Òõ for its diverse constituent communities in its centenary year? What does it tell us of the experience and value of this and other cities to its communities and the power of voices to envision them anew? What does the work mean for other projects that seek to connect communities with their cities and archives?

How to apply

We’d encourage you to contact Professor George Burrows (George.burrows@port.ac.uk) to discuss your interest before you apply, quoting the project code.

When you are ready to apply, you can use our . Make sure you submit a personal statement, proof of your degrees and grades, details of two referees, proof of your English language proficiency and an up-to-date CV.  Our ‘How to Apply’ page offers further guidance on the PhD application process.
 

If you want to be considered for this funded PhD opportunity you must quote project code FMC50460525 when applying. Please note that email applications are not accepted.