"PhD Studentship: Community risk perception, response and effective preparedness for low-frequency geoenvironmental hazards"

University of Birmingham - School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

The Centre for National Training and Research Excellence in Understanding Behaviour (Centre-UB) is inviting applications for a Doctoral Studentship in association with our collaborative partner, the British Geological Survey (BGS), to start in October 2026.

Geoenvironmental hazards, such as those arising from volcanism, earthquakes or extreme weather events, pose a wide range of societal and economic risks. Although our capacity to plan for many hazards has greatly improved in recent decades, atypical events can still present severe and unexpected impacts. These events may be marked out by their extreme magnitude or by compounding multi-hazard processes that depart from usual patterns of activity. In a changing climate, the impacts and the frequency of such events may also change, presenting a challenge for hazard preparedness and disaster risk reduction.

Societal resilience is a key part of sustainable community development and successful crisis management. Understanding community response, awareness and perception of hazards is particularly important for low-frequency or complex events that may depart from prior individual or community experience. Improved knowledge of how a community is likely to behave in the context of such events can provide essential information for education, awareness-building and the appropriate representation of relative risk.

This project seeks to understand community perceptions and knowledge of low-frequency hazards, addressing:

• How is risk perception informed by historical perspectives and community-embedded knowledge, what is the role of scientific knowledge within this, and how does knowledge persist within communities (e.g., via inter-generational transfer)?
• How does understanding of relative risk vary between high- and low-frequency hazards, and how does this collectively inform community response during crises?
• How can educational strategies for emotional resilience be built into disaster risk preparedness strategies to increase community agency and long-term resilience?

To address these questions, the project will develop case studies at volcanic-island communities in northern Indonesia, using volcanic tsunamis as an exemplar that is outside typical community experience. It will contrast community knowledge across communities with different levels of historical experience of this hazard, building on recent geological research in the region. The project will adopt various community engagement methods, incorporating interviews, surveys and participatory activities, designed to evaluate risk perception and hazard response behaviours and community knowledge transfer. In addition to surveys and interviews we aim to co-create participatory approaches that integrate everyday emotions as part of risk reduction education and practice, including community-driven methods. Approaches will be replicated across the study sites, through multi-stakeholder workshops, with a specific focus on young people and intergenerational knowledge transfer.

Findings from the first phase of the project will inform work with Indonesian hazard management stakeholders to understand how community knowledge is incorporated within hazard management protocols, and how site-specific procedures can involve community experience. The project will define the factors that govern risk perception for and emotional responses to low-frequency events, determining how community knowledge and emotional resilience can be evaluated and effectively included within hazard management planning.

Eligibility criteria: 1st class or 2:1 degree in the field of the geosciences, geography, environmental sciences or related disciplines, or with a background in social sciences and an interest in interdisciplinary research. An MSc degree in a relevant area is desirable though not necessary.

To apply, please follow the instructions here: https://www.centre-ub.org/studentships/application-process/

Centre-UB studentships cover tuition fees, a maintenance stipend, support for research training, and research activity support grants.