Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership (AHRC)

Strathclyde is able to offer high-quality, strongly supportive, individualised supervision in 17 areas, including specialised centres with access to resources and professional networks facilitated by supervisors.

More detail on our areas of particular expertise is given below. As an institution, Strathclyde has invested heavily in training for postgraduate researchers. PhD graduates will have completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Researcher Professional Development, a wide-ranging set of skills training courses and workshops designed to equip them for undertaking their doctoral research and entering employment on graduation. Students select and follow a preferred path through the available provision, as appropriate to their personal training needs. Classes range from Research Design and Project Management to Building International Visibility and Getting Published in Academic Journals.

Subject (“Panel”) areas

• Architecture
• Creative Writing
• Cultural Policy, Arts and Heritage Management
• Design
• English Language
• English Literature
• French Studies
• Gender Studies
• Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin Studies
• History
• Interpreting and Translation
• Italian Studies
• Journalism, Media and Communication
• Law and Legal Studies
• Linguistics
• Library and Information Studies
• Scottish Literature 

Architecture

Architecture by its very nature crosses the disciplinary borders between science, technology, the arts and humanities. The Department of Architecture has particular expertise not only in the history and theory of architecture and cities, but in the broader contextual and cultural dimensions of architectural culture that includes the political, cinematic, and literary dimensions of the built environment; the relationships between architecture, literature and film; the re-use of historic buildings and monuments; conservation theory; architectural history and the transformation of buildings.

Contact: Dr Ombretta Romice (ombretta.r.romice@strath.ac.uk)

Creative Writing

Creative Writing staff at Strathclyde offer a Masters by Research (MRes) as well as PhD supervision. In this thriving and lively subject area practical skills are taught by experienced writers. Dr Rodge Glass is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, and creative nonfiction writer with a particular interest in hybridity across form and the study of individual lives, while Andrew Meehan is a critically acclaimed novelist with many years of experience in feature film development, with a particular interest in transcultural revisions, adaptation and romantic relationships in narrative fiction. Dr Sarah Bernstein is a novelist and poet with a particular interest in contemporary Scottish Literature and the politics of difficulty. There are opportunities for cross-disciplinary supervision - for example with English, Media and History. Alumni include Louise Welsh, Mara Dougall and Rachel Seiffert. See https://www.strath.ac.uk/courses/research/creativewriting/ 

Students can get involved with a vibrant scene both within the university and in the city of Glasgow. At Strathclyde, there is a programme of visiting speakers from the world of prose, poetry, film and the publishing industry, including recent visitors such as the internationally recognised crime writer Denise Mina, novelist and editor of The Stinging Fly (Ireland) Danny Denton, award-winning Scottish short story writer Helen McClory and many more. Postgraduate students are invited to join the ongoing series of industry talks which have recently featured the likes of literary agent Robbie Guillory and Keara Donnachie (Scottish Book Trust). 

Recent student successes include the performance poet Katie Ailes, whose I Am Loud Poets series featured at the Edinburgh International Festival 2021 and Melissa Reid, whose short fiction was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as part of a series of New Scottish Writers.

Creative Writing Supervisors and Areas of Expertise

Contact: Jordan Kistler (jordan.kistler@strath.ac.uk) & Eleanor Bell (eleanor.bell@strath.ac.uk)

Design

The Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management (DMEM) is a multi-disciplinary department that focuses on the total design and development of innovative products, services, and systems. Our department is well-equipped with the latest state-of-the-art tools and equipment to support the designing, prototyping, manufacturing, and testing of design-led research outcomes. DMEM’s research interests embrace a culture of open and inclusive design that extends beyond the mere functional and/ or technical requirements of future products, services, and systems. Our research interests also focus on enhanced user experiences in the embodiment of designed outcomes, the design processes of how designers create and collaborate, and broader innovation trends through social and cultural influences. DMEM staff also explore the value and impact of design research as a driver of social, economic, cultural and/or environmental change. Potential areas of supervision include:

• User experience: Product aesthetics, remote presence, product interaction.
• Design process: creativity and creative working, information support, collaborative tools.  
• Disruptive design/ design activism techniques as innovative change agents.
• Design-led research as a driver of innovation/ change: i.e. social, cultural, economic, and/ or environmental impact (e.g. in health and social care contexts).

Contact: Dr Andrew Wodehouse (andrew.wodehouse@strath.ac.uk)

English Language and Literature, Scottish Literature

Supervisors in English cover historical periods from Renaissance to Contemporary and have additional strengths in Animal Studies, Periodical studies, Gender and Sexuality, Scottish Studies, Victorian and neo-Victorian studies, Heritage, Life Writing, Cognition of Literature, and Literary Linguistics.

The department has particular strengths in interdisciplinary research. Strathclyde is home to the internationally renowned British Animal Studies Network and hosts the Glasgow Animal Studies Reading Group. We are also one of the world centres for Literary Linguistics, which combines theoretical linguistics and literary study (see “Linguistics” below). The department has further strengths in the Medical Humanities, in areas such as the relationship between literary form and psychology and cognitive science.

Strathclyde hosts the Scottish Centre for Victorian and Neo-Victorian Studies, which brings together scholars from Strathclyde, Glasgow, and Stirling with interests in the Victorian period. Our strengths in Victorian and Edwardian studies and print cultures have been recognised in three recent AHRC doctoral awards.
We also have an outstanding record in internally and AHRC funded doctoral supervision. Research topics range from Scottish Asian writing, periodical studies and the history of medicine, Scottish magazine culture, feminist media studies, Scottish cultural activism of the 20th century, social networks and the railway, popular and speculative fiction, ecofeminism, and spoken word poetry.

The department is involved in major overseas collaborations on digital humanities and is also home to a major three-year Leverhulme grant and a Royal Society of Edinburgh workshop grant in the emerging field of cognition of literature.

English Language Supervisors and Areas of Expertise

Contact: Eleanor Bell (Eleanor.bell@strath.ac.uk)

Gender Studies

• Gender issues, inequalities, gender-based violence, gender justice, gender differences, gender identities, gendered relationships, gender and power.
• The social, cultural, historical, political, and economic dimensions of gender.
• How gender intersects with related structural inequalities including class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and disability.
• Gender theory, queer theory, feminist epistemology, and methodology.
• Activism, advocacy, business, education, and policy work in fields of diversity, inclusion, equalities, and social justice

Contact: PGR Director, Department of Humanities (hass-hum-pgr@strath.ac.uk) 

History

History has an excellent track record in attracting postgraduate funding from the AHRC, ESRC, Wellcome Trust, and Carnegie Trust.  Recent graduates have not only continued in post-doctoral appointments at Strathclyde and elsewhere but also full-time academic posts and permanent positions as historians with other employers, such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.  

Historical research at Strathclyde is built along four, often overlapping, strands:

1. History of Science, Technology and Medicine (supported by the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, run jointly with Glasgow Caledonian University) - mental health and psychiatry; drug policy and addiction; military medicine; food and nutrition; immunology; occupational health; gender, sexuality, and medicine
2. Oral History (supported by the Scottish Oral History Centre) – history of work; disability; genocide; industrialisation and deindustrialisation; health and medicine; experiences of war; masculinities
3. European and International History – Ireland; Balkans and Eastern Europe; Russia; France; Africa (Great Lakes region); African American history; European diplomacy; Cold War history; British Empire; History of the USA; Italy.
4. Scotland and the World – the Scottish ‘periphery’; political history; religious history; industrialisation and deindustrialisation; maritime history; Scotland’s relations within the wider British and Irish archipelago; Scotland and colonialism.

History Supervisors and Areas of Expertise

Contact: Jim Mills (jim.mills@strath.ac.uk)

Journalism, Media and Communication

We are staffed by a team of internationally renowned scholars, presenting a range of academic and professional profiles. While we welcome proposals from across journalism and publishing, we enjoy particular expertise in the following fields:

• Media and politics
• Investigative journalism
• Journalism and ethics
• Health journalism
• Media and communications
• Strategic Communication and Communication Studies
• Gender Studies

Contact: Lesley Henderson (lesley.henderson@strath.ac.uk)

Law and Legal Studies

The Strathclyde Law School offers a vibrant and exciting environment in which to further your studies. Our research interests are diverse, offering expertise across a wide range of areas and in both doctrinal and socio-legal approaches to the study of law using theoretical and/or empirical methods. We can supervise most areas of law and legal studies and our staff have particular interests in the following fields:

• Constitutional and Administrative Law – Scottish, UK, EU, global and comparative aspects;
• Civil Justice – dispute resolution and mediation, labour law and employment tribunals, economic and social rights;
• Criminal Law generally, Evidence, Criminal Justice and Criminology – child offenders, youth justice, forensic science, evidence, juries, expert evidence, criminal law, community penalties, cybercrimes, counter-terrorism, homicide, sentencing and penal policy, judiciary, legal aid, plea bargaining, high-risk offenders, desistance, imprisonment, domestic violence, sexual violence and sex work;
• Environmental Law and Governance – biodiversity, climate change, corporate accountability, economic law, energy, environmental justice, fresh water, human rights, land, food and agriculture, oceans, sustainable development, traditional knowledge, legal anthropology, property theory and ecological justice;
• Equality and Discrimination Law – gender, same-sex relationships, work and family reconciliation;
• EU Law –constitutional, institutional, social law, competition law, EU asylum and immigration law;
• Human Rights – domestic, European, international and comparative aspects including immigration and asylum, transitional justice, indigenous people’s rights and human rights education.
• Housing Law and Policy – the private rented sector, homelessness;
• International Law – trade law, international migration law, transitional justice (including the legacy of the Holocaust), terrorism law;
• Internet Law and Regulation – Intellectual property, privacy and surveillance, e-commerce, content regulation, child pornography and cybercrime;
• Law and Popular Culture – film, TV and theatre;
• Private Law – family law and domestic relations, medical law and ethics, trade and competition law;
• The Legal Profession – lawyers and lawyering, professional ethics, the provision of legal services and access to justice, the judiciary.

Law Supervisors and Areas of Expertise

Contact: Dr Saskia Vermeylen (saskia.vermeylen@strath.ac.uk)

Library and Information Studies

By UKRI/EU research funding and ISI ranked research output, the University of Strathclyde Department of Computer and Information Sciences is the leading information school in Scotland and one of the top in the UK. It is also a member of the iSchools group, a coalition of the world’s leading information schools.  In pursuit of a literate and informed society, much of our research is societal in nature, investigating human information need and use, and informing future interactive public information system service design. Working closely with industry and the Library & Information Science profession, we have active research partnership agreements with a number of public sector organisations encompassing PhD field research support.  We welcome PhD applicants with particular interests in:

• interactive information retrieval
• information seeking behaviour
• Digital Preservation and Curation 
• Digital Cultural Heritage
• Hiking and digital technologies
• Pilgrimage routes in a digital world
• Information practices of marginalised groups
• Information behaviour and Serious Leisure
• Digital interoperability
• Digital Libraries
• Social media in humanities research
• Use of information in spiritual, health, or cultural heritage contexts

Further information is available via our research group webpages

Contact: Professor Ian Ruthven (ian.ruthven@strath.ac.uk)

Linguistics

We specialise in the combination of linguistics and literature, and in 1985 established a programme in 'Literary Linguistics'. We focus on poetic and narrative form, from a linguistic and psychological perspective. In 2021, we offered a Scottish graduate catalyst event on literature and linguistics

Contact: Dr Charles Piggot (c.piggot@strath.ac.uk)

Marketing, including Cultural Policy, Arts and Heritage Management

Our researchers are at the forefront of the increasing convergence between Marketing and the Humanities and Social Sciences. We look critically at the societal and commercial impacts of consumerism and often adopt historical approaches in the analysis of consumer culture within the globalisation discourse. The Dept. of Marketing has recently achieved success in attracting an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award with the project “Cultural Heritage and Ancestral Tourism: reclaiming Scottish identity from "Highlandisation" in collaboration with Glasgow Life. We offer particular PhD supervisory expertise in the following areas:

• Cultural Heritage
• Heritage marketing
• Destinations
• Ancestral tourism
• Community-based tourism
• Consumer Culture Theory

Current areas researched with the Dept of Marketing that have yielded publications in high-impact journals include the interface between Diaspora markets and heritage practitioners through Ancestral Tourism in Scotland; the interpretation of Islamic cultural heritage in the international marketplace; the question of ‘Authenticity’ in the production and reception of heritage products; nostalgia as an influence on consumption in the 21st century as well as place identity and community heritage marketing. We are also interested in the impact of poverty on consumption and the implications of consumer disadvantage and consumer poverty for wellbeing and social exclusion.

Contact: Dr Derek Bryce (derek.bryce@strath.ac.uk) & Jordan Kistler (jordan.kistler@strath.ac.uk) 

Modern Languages

We have an excellent track record of successful supervisions across the three languages which are taught at Strathclyde, and many of our former students have gone on to become academics, or to work in other university-related jobs. Our research, which covers a range of disciplines and methodologies, focuses on the modern period. Where applicable we can offer joint supervision with other departments.

• French Studies: Late 19th and 20th century history and culture, particularly the Second World War, French colonialism and legacies, contemporary Francophone literature and women’s writing, literary translation.
• Hispanic Studies: Modern Spanish and Latin American Literature, Intellectual History
• Italian Studies: 19^thand 20^thCentury History and Culture, particularly Opera, Gender Studies, the Second World War, Terrorism, Protest Movements
• Language Teaching: Theory and practice, multilingualism
• Translation and Interpreting: (re)translation, personal and cultural memory, translation history, vocabulary acquisition, translator & interpreter training

 Modern Languages Supervisors and Areas of Expertise

Contact: Caroline Verdier (caroline.verdier@strath.ac.uk)