About the Project
Leicester and Leicestershire have a proud tradition of cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, sustained in part by careful local journalism. Accurate, timely news helps connect communities and lets people understand and take part in local decision-making.
Today, however, the local news system faces serious technological, commercial and social challenges. Leicestershire Live, which includes the Leicester Mercury, has seen the biggest year-on-year audience decline of any Reach PLC UK news operation, a drop of 83%. A small but significant part of the local population also distrusts professional news, which increases vulnerability to misinformation.
This PhD project will use participatory action research, an approach in which researchers and community members investigate a problem together, to build an evidence-based picture of how these challenges are affecting local news media's role in nurturing civic identity. Civic identity means people's sense of themselves as part of a community with a shared future. When it weakens, people can disengage from public life, co-operation across divisions becomes harder, and communities find it more difficult to solve social and political problems. The researcher will develop a new analytical framework to examine how local news shapes civic identity, and will explore whether new, community-based models of responsible news provision can help address the gap left as under-funded mainstream outlets withdraw from local news and technological shifts fragment audiences.
The project brings together academic expertise in misinformation, news and journalism with practitioner expertise from Leicester Gazette, a pioneering, co-operative-funded, community-owned news organisation. It is designed to benefit three Leicester and Leicestershire communities, which are defined inclusively: the local journalism community, local news audiences, and community practitioners in local authority and third-sector organisations. It responds to a clear local need for actions that help people live well together and increase feelings of belonging, and treats local news as a community institution whose trustworthiness and role in connecting people come from how it informs citizens about local affairs.
The project will produce a civic identity balance sheet, giving communities, news providers and local partners a practical way to understand and strengthen the role of local news in local life.
This project has been co-created with and is supported by researchers from Loughborough University and the University of Leicester, and partners at Leicester Gazette. The successful candidate for this project will be enrolled at Loughborough University.
Project Aims and Objectives
The project objectives are:
- Positively benefit three Leicester and Leicestershire communities: the local journalism community, local news audiences, and community practitioners in local authority and third-sector organisations.
- Explain how the hollowing-out of local news is enabling the unchecked spread of misinformation in ways that undermine local civic identity.
- Explore whether new, community-based models of good-quality news provision such as Leicester Gazette's can help fill the growing civic identity deficit.
- Produce a civic identity balance sheet detailing the acute local context of news under-provision and audience fragmentation. In keeping with our intuitive metaphor, the balance sheet will document local news media system "assets" and "liabilities" when it comes to civic identity. Who "owns" those assets, by which we mean with whom or with what do they originate? What are the short-term and long-term factors that produce "surpluses" and "deficits."?
What is Collaboratory?
Collaboratory is a research programme, led by Universities for Nottingham and the Leicester Universities Partnership, that places community knowledge and experience at the heart of research. This eight-year initiative is pioneering a new approach to collaboration, working closely with local communities and community-focused organisations to develop and deliver research that addresses the needs and priorities of local communities.
Who are we looking for?
Collaboratory aims to bridge the gap between academia and communities through a holistic programme of co-created research that actively embeds public groups within its research. As we strive to establish an innovative approach to conducting PhD research, we seek candidates who can demonstrate a deep knowledge of and commitment to Leicester Leicestershire and Rutland and communities. Prospective candidates should demonstrate the extent to which they meet the project competencies, detailed in the full advert on the Collaboratory website.
How to Apply
Applications to all Collaboratory 2027 PhD studentships must be submitted through our online applications portal. It is strongly recommended that prospective applicants attend one of the online support sessions, prior to submitting their application. Full details of the Collaboratory programme, studentship funding, eligibility criteria and link to the application form can be found on our website at collaboratoryresearchhub.ac.uk/2027-studentships.
Applications open at 11am on Monday, 5th October 2026 and close at 11:59 pm on Sunday, 29th November 2026.