Some of these projects have guaranteed funding (these projects may have a different deadline - so please check the project description carefully). Other projects are eligible for competitive funding through NERC studentships awarded to the Department. Geography has been awarded one NERC quota award for 2010/2011 and two University fully-funded PhD Studentships.

Projects in human geography topics are eligible for ESRC 1+3 and +3 funding through the open competition. Self-funded students are always welcome. More information about funding opportunities and eligability criteria is available here. Applicants are advised to contact their potential supervisor for advice and details of how to apply .

Projects in human geography are also eligible for AHRC funding.   Further information about the AHRC studentship competition can be found here.

• The closing date for applications to NERC studentships is Friday 19 March 2010.  Interviews will be held during the week beginning 22 March 2010.  
• The closing date for the ESRC open competition is Monday 12 April 2010. Applicants are advised to make contact with their potential supervisor well in advance of this date if they wish to be considered for this funding source.  Further information about the ESRC open competition can be found here.
• The closing date for the AHRC studentship competition is Friday 19 March 2010.  Applicants are advised to make contact with their potential supervisor well in advance of this date if they wish to be considered for this funding source.
• The closing date for applications for one of the Swansea University PhD Studentships is Friday 30 April 2010.  Details regarding the other studentship will be posted shortly.

Information about the application process for all research projects in both human and physical geography can be found here.

 
Environmental Dynamics

The main foci of the group are (i) determining environmental variability throughout the Quaternary and into the future and (ii) establishing the effects and feedbacks of this variability in climate and land management on land surface processes. The research focuses on regions especially sensitive to environmental change (tropical, cold and fire-prone) and also considers interactions between climatic change, human disturbance and catastrophic events.  

• Did the Medieval warm period exist in Fennoscandia?
• Quantifying the hydrological effects of hydrophobicity in soils 
• Reconstructing the eruptive history of New Zealand volcanoes using cryptotephra techniques in crater lake sediments 
• Soil water repellency occurrence: understanding the temperature and moisture controls 
• The impact of wildfire on organic matter quantity and composition in European and Australian Forest Soils
• Tropical dendrochronology 
• Tracing volcanic events in the Greenland NEEM ice core
• Soil water repellency: occurrence and hydrological impacts in humid temperate climates
• Potential of small-scale biochar production for carbon sequestrationand soil amendment in the UK
• Does CO2 fertilisation affect climatic reconstruction?

Glaciology

The group undertakes research in glaciology and the cryosphere, specialising in understanding the processes that regulate glacier dynamics, flow instabilities and surging, and glacier fast flow. The group uses a wide variety of techniques including geophysics, numerical modelling and remote sensing, and current field projects span the Arctic, Antarctic and Alps.

• Using remotely sensed data to constrain late 20th century glacier volume changes in Greenland and Svalbard
• Seasonal variations in glacier flow speed and uplift at the margins of the Greenland Ice Sheet using satellite radar interferometry
• A Rheological Modelling Approach to Understanding Glacier Substrate Behaviour
• Palaeoglaciology of Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq Glaciers, south-east Greenland
• Grounding line dynamics at the Larsen C ice shelf using satellite remote sensing

Global Environmental Modelling and Earth Observation

This group's research addresses a range of environmental issues including the interactions between vegetation and climate, glacier dynamics, and urbanization. The group is instrumental to the Climate and Land-Surface Systems Interaction Centre (CLASSIC), which is a NERC Centre of Excellence.

• Development of a linked plant physiology / light interaction model for remote observation of vegetation photosynthesis 
• Estimation of plant photosynthesis from satellite observations
• Estimation of atmospheric emission of black carbon (BC) from boreal forest fires
• Forest inventory from satellite laser observations 

 Migration, Boundaries and Identities

An understanding the importance of place at national, local and personal levels is central to the agenda of contemporary human geography. The research undertaken within this group focuses on the social and political construction of place, nationalism and nationhood, on relationships between international migration, globalisation and the conceptualisation of place, and on geographies of exclusion, particularly as these relate to issues of race, gender and childhood. The members of the group are strongly inter-disciplinary in their approach and work closely with colleagues across the University. Much of this research has a strong policy emphasis and the group hosts the University's Centre for Migration Policy Research which focuses on the ways in which the realities of national and international migration for migrants, the communities from which they depart and those to which they subsequently move or pass through are conceptualized and represented within policy and practice.

 We are particularly interested in recruiting new research students in the following areas

• Asylum and migration policy and practice
• Development geographies
• National identity
• Rurality and rural communities
• Sustainable communities
• Migration and social development
• Migrant rights

The following projects are illustrative of potential areas of research. Alternatively please contact your potential supervisor to discuss your research ideas:

• Access to primary and secondary health care among asylum seekers in Wales
• 'Into the West': countercultural migration to rural West Wales'

Social Theory and Urban Space

The group aims to advance theoretically informed understandings of space and spatiality, with particular reference to modern and postmodern cities. This theoretical ambition embraces a range of conceptual approaches, most notably those associated with poststructuralism. The group is especially well known for its systematic transformation of the conceptual architecture of Human Geography through an engagement with the work of Jean Baudrillard, Zygmunt Bauman, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida. Theoretical research is conducted within a wide variety of societal contexts, including consumerism, film and visual culture, urban regeneration, the knowledge economy, the media, health-care, and world cities. The group also hosts the University's Centre for Urban Theory (CUT)  which is dedicated to mobilizing the intellectual resources of the full spectrum of disciplines for the advancement of urban theory.

 

Details of research activities currently being undertaken or developed by members of this research group can be found here. We are particularly interested in recruiting new research students in the following areas:

• Cities and urban theory
• Consumerism and consumer culture
• Film and the representation of space
• Healing spaces
• Regional economic development
• The use of urban space

 The following projects are illustrative of potential areas of research. Alternatively please contact your potential supervisor to discuss your research ideas: 

• New York's and London's cultural-economic networks: the case of the fashion industry
• Exploiting divergence in European Union intellectual property regulations
• Visual invention and the city