Funded opportunity

About the course

East Midlands SLAM (Sustainable Living and Mental Wellbeing) is an AHRC-funded Doctoral Focal Award (2026-2032), at the interface of the environmental and health humanities, exploring the relationships between sustainability and mental health.

We invite applications for fully-funded four-year PhD studentships that will empower you to become a changemaker.

EM-SLAM is a unique consortium of four leading universities: Loughborough, De Montfort, Nottingham Trent, and Leicester. It is grounded in the specialisms of the collective whole, in environmental humanities, health and wellbeing, ecology, and the arts, using storytelling as a research methodology and knowledge practice to enable impactful, transdisciplinary work.

We work alongside national and regional partners and cultural organisations to explore what it means to live in inclusive, sustainable, flourishing communities and to address the intertwined crises of environmental degradation and mental health in ways that are both impactful and hopeful. EM-SLAM will train at least 30 doctoral researchers (including practice-based scholars) to lead change across academia, policy, the third sector, and creative industries.

We are inviting proposals for innovative PhD projects connected with the following themes:

Creative methods and nature connectedness
Green spaces and wellbeing
Wellbeing and its relationship to sustainability activities
Creative methodological innovations, using the techniques and insights of the arts and humanities to explore questions around sustainability, and nature connectedness.

Estimated thesis submission:

Funding information

The (AHRC) is one of a number of , each with a different range of research priorities. The AHRC supports and develops outstanding researchers across the arts and humanities, who pursue research with imagination, creativity and interdisciplinarity, and seek to tackle socio-cultural challenges of the past and present, whilst envisaging and designing possibilities for the future. This is underpinned by the AHRC’s deep commitment to the values of equality, diversity and inclusion. Allocating funding for doctoral study through the Landscape Awards is key to nurturing such research and the future generation of researchers.

Funding duration: 4 years

Fees and expenses:

Stipend

Funding includes:

A full tuition fee waiver for Home or International students, for full-time or part-time study;
A maintenance grant for 4 years full-time or 8 years part-time (thesis submission is required at the end of the funded period for both full and part-time candidates).

Entry requirements

The scheme is open to both UK/Home Students and International students for study on full-time and part-time routes.
Applicants must not already be in receipt of a doctoral level qualification and cannot be currently enrolled as a doctoral student either at 黑料传送门 or another institution.
Proposed research must fall within one of the . We welcome interdisciplinary proposals but do be aware that at least 50% of the project must focus on one of the AHRC’s primary research areas.
Applicants must have a Master's degree or Equivalent professional experience relevant to your proposed area of study.

How to apply

We would strongly encourage you to begin by approaching prospective supervisors at 黑料传送门 aligned with the themes above and with your research interests, so that you can develop your project proposal and application in supportive dialogue with those supervisors. Check out our Blog on how to find a supervisor and also don’t forget to use our handy find a supervisor tool.

We invite a first stage application by contacting
- Prof Raghu Raghavan rraghavan@dmu.ac.uk
- Prof Brown brown@dmu.ac.uk
An interview and panel meeting will take place shortly after the deadline date.

Contact details

Prof Raghu Raghavan & Prof Brown - Email: rraghavan@dmu.ac.uk

AHRC - Sustainable Living and Mental Wellbeing (SLAM)