**This opportunity has now closed**

Deadline for applications: NOON, 6 January 2023.

We are delighted to announce five +3 (three year) PhD studentships to commence in autumn 2023. Through an ambitious programme of research across five domains of social life (caring, consuming, learning, moving and organizing) and four key technical fields (artificial intelligence, high performance networks, robotics, and augmented, virtual and extended reality), we are exploring the interplay between the ‘big’ futures claimed by technology companies and governments and the ‘little’ futures that are emerging in everyday life. Since these interactions produce multiple and unexpected outcomes with far reaching implications for economy, politics and society; we are committed to exploring these as well as the prospects that exist for fairer and more sustainable futures. Within the Futures Studio four-cross cutting threads (theory, methods, collaboration and design) will drive integrated capacity building and intervention for sociodigital futures research across the Centre. Two of these studentships are funded by the ESRC; Three are Alumni-funded scholarships. There is a project descriptor for each studentship that offers a broad indication of priority areas and/or thematic focus and/or core academic disciplines.  These project descriptors should be the starting point for applicants to develop their own research proposals. In doing so, the expectation is that all proposals should be directly relevant to CenSoF and connect to multiple elements of the Centre (domains of practice, technical affordance projects, the four threads of the Futures Studio).

As members of the Centre’s PhD Programme and ECR network, all CenSoF PhD students will be offered opportunities for mentorship, support (both peer and from experienced researchers), and career development training. They will also benefit from opportunities wherever possible, including through the South West Doctoral Training Partnership and Bristol Doctoral College.

The studentships available are:

• Afro- and/or Indigenous- Futurisms and Educational Technology (ESRC)
• Researching ‘the digital’: exploring methods for sociodigital research (ESRC)
• Caring Futures PhD (Alumni-funded scholarship)
• Futures Studio PhD (Alumni-funded scholarship)
• Technical Affordance Projects PhD (Alumni-funded scholarship)

Note that the ESRC funded studentships are open to UK and international applicants, while the Alumni funded studentships are open to UK applicants only.

Further details on these opportunities can be found here.