EPSRC Doctoral Studentship - The Social Study of Low Power Environmental Monitoring
About the Project
Project details
The climate crisis has produced an urgent, planet-wide demand for environmental data. As temperatures rise, air quality deteriorates, and extreme weather intensifies, the need to monitor environmental conditions has grown ever more pressing. Against this backdrop, environmental sensors have become a critical material infrastructure through which climate adaptation and corporate compliance with targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions reductions are being governed. Yet the design and deployment of electronic sensing technologies is also creating new flows of electronic waste, making this a critical frontier for innovation in circular engineering and manufacturing.
Supervised across the School of Social & Political Sciences and the REACT (Responsible Electronics and Circular Economy Centre) labs at the University of Glasgow, this fully funded doctoral project offers a cutting-edge opportunity for doctoral research at the intersection of anthropology, design, science/technology studies, and sociology to follow the development of next generation low power environmental sensing technologies from design to global contexts of use.
Low power environmental sensors are not neutral instruments. They enact visions of what a well-managed environment looks like, what counts as evidence, who produces knowledge, and whose experience of environmental change matters. When engineers design low-power environmental sensors, whose sense of urgency shapes the design? The regulatory urgency of net zero targets? The health urgency of particulate matter exposure? The political urgency of citizens seeking evidence of harm? How are low-power environmental sensors designed and what assumptions about environments, users, and evidence are embedded in their architecture? How do these devices operate in across radically different contexts. And what adaptations, improvisations, and failures occur when environmental monitoring devices designed and built in the UK meet diverse material and institutional realities around the world?
This EPSRC funded Doctoral Project will address these questions by investigating the design, deployment, and lived experience of environmental sensing technologies, tracking the development of prototype devices from laboratory settings in Glasgow into real-world contexts, bringing ethnographic and design research methods to bear on the development of future technologies that seek to reduce electronic waste and regenerate planetary ecosystems.
The project will generate ethnographic data about how monitoring technologies operate across diverse social contexts, revealing where design assumptions break down, and produce new insights into the relationship between sensor data and lived experience.
Supervisory Team
Prinicipal Supervisor: Professor Jamie Cross
Secondary Supervisor/s: Dr Mark Wong & Professor Jeff Kettle
About the School/Research Unit
The successful candidate will be based in the School of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, one of the largest and most research-intensive social science schools in the UK. SPS brings together 12 subject groups – including Social Anthropology, Sociology, Criminology, Media Studies, Urban Studies, Social Policy, Politics, and International Relations under a single roof, supporting a vibrant interdisciplinary postgraduate research culture of more than 200 doctoral students. The School was rated joint first in the UK for research impact in Sociology in REF 2021 and has long-standing strengths in the social study of science, technology, environment, and infrastructure.
Primary supervision within Social Anthropology & Migration (Professor Jamie Cross) will connect the project to a cluster of researchers working at the intersection of science and technology studies, planetary health and the environmental humanities. The group has particular depth in ethnographic methods, energy and climate research, digital infrastructures, and the politics of measurement and evidence. The successful candidate will also have access to the Glasgow Ethnography Studio, a new initiative that brings social scientists, designers, and engineers together in ethnographic research projects for changing planetary conditions.
The project's cross-disciplinary supervision reflects Glasgow's commitment to research that crosses the social sciences and engineering. Co-supervision from Urban Studies & Social Policy (Dr Mark Wong) brings expertise in social inequalities, digital methods, and the urban politics of environmental monitoring. Co-supervision from the James Watt School of Engineering (Professor Jeff Kettle) and integration with the Responsible Electronics and Circular Economy Technologies Centre gives the student direct access to the laboratories, prototyping facilities, and industry partnerships where next-generation low-power environmental sensors are being designed and tested. This is a rare opportunity to follow a technology from the lab bench into the world.
The student will join a thriving cohort of doctoral researchers across the School of Social & Political Sciences and the wider College of Social Sciences, with structured training provided by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science, Glasgow's PGR development programme, and tailored methods training in ethnography, design research, and science and technology studies.
Eligibility
Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:
- A good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent)
- A demonstratable interest in the topic area under investigation
- Able to study on a full-time basis only
- Considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status
- Entry requirements for the Sociology, PhD
Funding Notes
The scholarship is available as a full-time +3.5 (3.5 year) PhD programme only. The programme will commence in October 2026. The full funding package includes:
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