development strategy | Scholarship for Nigerians and Africans - Part 2

PhD Studentship in Consumers and Possessions: A Cross-Disciplinary Exploration of Sustainable Practices, UK

The School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University has an ambitious development strategy which allows us to offer an exciting opportunity for a PhD Studentship. The studentships will pay UK/EU fees and provide a maintenance stipend linked to the RCUK rate (£13,590 per annum for 2011/12) for up to three years. The need to enhance understanding of human behaviour in order to progress towards sustainable patterns of consumption is well recognised, as is evidence that design of our possessions and surroundings locks us into particular forms of behaviour. This is a cross-disciplinary studentship involving research into how people use their possessions and the built environment with regard to sustainability and the implications of this for design practice. One of its key elements will be to relate knowledge in sustainable architecture, sustainable fashion and sustainable product design.
Our past research has found evidence of inconsistent behaviour among consumers with regard to their influence upon the environmental impact of different products. Further research is needed to explain these inconsistencies and the University’s Sustainable Consumption Research Group is currently planning a series of cross-disciplinary seminars. These will explore the use of buildings, clothing, household goods and vehicles and consider factors that may lead them to be used in a sustainable manner and reasons for inconsistencies in user behaviour. Other research at the University has proposed a theoretical case for addressing the effect of the material form of products on people’s behaviour. The University’s OPEN Research Group (Objects, Practices, Experiences and Networks) is currently running a series of events through which different perspectives on materials and materiality are being explored. The output of these two initiatives will underpin this studentship, which is intended to enhance understanding of pro-environmental behaviour change.

Scholarship Application Deadline: 15 April 2011.

Further Scholarship Information and Application

ADBE Lean Construction Studentship, UK: Institutionalised Waste within the Construction Industry

The School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University has an ambitious development strategy which allows us to offer an exciting opportunity for a PhD Studentship. The studentships will pay UK/EU fees and provide a maintenance stipend linked to the RCUK rate (£13,590 per annum for 2011/12) for up to three years.  This project is part of a portfolio of research being undertaken within the newly formed Centre for Lean Projects at NTU. The successful candidate will join an international team of doctoral researchers and will have access to the collaborating construction industry partners in the UK.
Waste, as understood in Lean thinking, doesn’t feature in modern construction economics or management theory. These fail to recognise the imperfect systems in which entities not only operate inefficiently but additionally protect themselves by adding contingency and behaving opportunistically. The effect of these practices is to embed inefficient and wasteful processes across the supply chain and throughout the project life cycle, consequently they have become part of the institution of the construction industry – “the way it does business”.

Scholarship Application Deadline: 15 April 2011.

Further Scholarship Information and Application

PhD Fellowship in Drug Delivery, Denmark

The purpose of the Drug Research Academy is to train the next generation of drug researchers. Emphasis is on integrated research training to enable researchers to conduct innovative drug research in an interdisciplinary and highly integrated environment. The PhD study programme includes obligatory PhD courses with focus on key elements in drug research. The industrial perspective is considered essential and at least three months of research must be carried out in an industrial environment. Applications are invited for the three-year fellowship from candidates that hold or expect to hold a master´s degree in a field relevant to the following project:

Oral modified release – rational development strategy for oral modified release products. Supervisors: Associate Professor Bente Steffansen, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chief Specialist Per Holm, H. Lundbeck A/S.

Scholarship Application Deadline:Tuesday 12 April 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application