PhD Studentships in Applied Sciences - University of Huddersfield

Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship Scheme

If you’re a Huddersfield graduate, looking to undertake a full-time or part-time research degree, you may be eligible for a full fee-waiver on your research degree.

The scholarship is open to home and international candidates.

Please note, for international students our Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship Scheme provides a fee waiver of at least 50% on full-time or part-time research degrees, some schools may offer 100%.

Eligibility criteria

Our Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship Scheme is a competitive application process and to be eligible, you must have achieved one of the following:

- a first-class honours degree
- a distinction at taught Master’s
or
- be recommended based on your Master’s by Research by your supervisor and academic school
and
- graduated from the University of Huddersfield in the last three years.

Any offer will be conditional on your degree outcome if you are graduating in the current academic year.

General

Available for research undertaken on a full-time or part-time basis including PhD, Master of Arts by Research, and Master of Science by Research.

Scholarship is only available for the standard registration period only,

For doctoral awards, or PhD, the fee waiver will be for 3 years full-time or 6 years part-time

For Master’s by Research awards, the fee-waiver will be for 1-year full time or 2 years part time.

The fee waiver will not apply to any research undertaken outside of this standard registration period, including any write up period.

The University of Huddersfield reserves the right to vary or withdraw the waiver at any point in future academic years.

Please note, that this fee waiver is subject to availability.

How to apply

To apply, please complete an online application form stating the scholarship you wish to apply for in the funding section.

To be considered for the scheme, ensure you meet the application deadlines:

PGR Start Date	Application Deadline Date
Sept/October 2025	13 June 2025
January 2026	17 October 2025
April 2026	23 January 2026

Selection process

All eligible candidates will be subject to interview as part of the selection process. This will be arranged by the relevant academic school.

Further information

For more information, please contact the Graduate School at gs.pgradmissions@hud.ac.uk

Chancellor’s Scholarships

We are seeking the very best graduates from across the UK to participate in our Chancellor’s Scholarships Scheme, which gives those selected access to a full tuition waiver on their research degree, as well as additional funds to attend national and international conferences to disseminate and publish their research.

Details

To celebrate 200 years of the University of Huddersfield, which in 1825 was established as The Science and Mechanics Institute, we are awarding Chancellor’s Scholarships across all PhD disciplines.

These scholarships are available across all academic disciplines for research undertaken on either a full-time or part-time basis.

Eligibility criteria

Our Chancellor’s Anniversary Scholarships Scheme is a competitive application process open to home (UK resident) candidates and to be eligible you must have achieved one of the following:

2:1 honours degree or above.
Distinction at taught Master’s.
Master’s by Research degree and have a letter of recommendation from your supervisor.

Research degrees include the following awards; PhD, Professional Doctorates, Master’s of Arts by Research, and Master’s of Science by Research.

General

The University of Huddersfield reserves the right to vary or withdraw the waiver at any point in future academic years.

All scholarship students must successfully complete progression monitoring at the end of each academic year to continue the scholarship award.

If you have any queries or require further information, please contact gs.pgradmissions@hud.ac.uk

How to apply

To apply, please complete an online application form stating the scholarship you wish to apply for in the funding section.

For more information on applying, please visit our how to apply for a research degree page.

The following deadline dates will apply:

PGR Start Date	Application Deadline Date
Sept/Oct 2025	13 June 2025
January 2026	17 October 2025
April 2026	23 January 2026

Selection process

All eligible candidates will be subject to interview as part of the selection process. This will be arranged by the relevant academic school.

Further information

For further information, please contact the Graduate School at gs.pgradmissions@hud.ac.uk

Sustainable Extraction and Bioactivity of Plant Phenolics in Crop Protectants

Supervisor: Dr Athanasios Angelis-Dimakis

Are you interested in sustainability, green chemistry and biotechnology? This PhD offers an exciting opportunity to work at the cutting edge of the circular bioeconomy, transforming agricultural by-products into high-value natural products for food and farming. Phenolic compounds are naturally occurring plant chemicals with antioxidant, antimicrobial, and insect-deterring properties. Using innovative green extraction technologies such as ultrasound-assisted extraction, this project will recover phenolic- and other bioactive-rich fractions from Ficus carica (fig) leaves, peels, and other residues – materials that are currently underused or discarded.

You will characterise the chemical profiles of these extracts using advanced analytical techniques (LC-MS/MS and bioassays) and assess their potential as eco-friendly biopesticides or post-harvest protectants through laboratory tests on model pests and plant systems. The project is highly interdisciplinary, combining green process engineering, analytical chemistry, plant/insect biology, and formulation science. You will gain skills in cutting-edge extraction methods, chemical profiling, insect and plant bioassays, nanoformulation and life-cycle assessment.

This training will prepare you for careers across academia, agri-tech, food innovation, environmental consultancy and policy. The research addresses urgent global needs for sustainable pest management, waste reduction and bio-based innovation. If you are motivated by applying science to real-world challenges, enjoy interdisciplinary research and want to develop a skillset spanning green chemistry, bioscience and sustainability assessment, we welcome your application for this exciting PhD opportunity.

About the BBSRC Yorkshire Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership (YBDTP)

The YBDTP brings together world-class bioscience research and innovation, as well as excellence in doctoral supervision, across the Yorkshire and Teesside region. The YBDTP will fund postgraduate researchers at the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield, York, Bradford, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds Beckett, Sheffield Hallam and Teesside forming a strong regional training partnership. In YBDTP you'll benefit from a regional doctoral training programme that has interdisciplinary collaboration at its core. The aim is to enable you to develop a range of research skills in biological, biotechnology and biochemical areas as well as equip you with core data analysis and professional skills that are necessary for bioscience research and related non-academic careers.

Funding Notes

Funding: A tax-free annual stipend at the standard UKRI rate (£20,780 for 2025/26 entry), research costs and tuition fees at UK rate

Academic year: 2026/27

Open to: International (including EU) and UK (home) students

Eligibility

Open to International (including EU) and UK (home) students.

You can apply if you have, or are expecting to gain, at least an upper second-class honours degree or equivalent. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this programme, we welcome applications if your background is in any biological, chemical or physical science or mathematics and are interested in using your skills in addressing biological questions. International students should check if they meet the entry requirements for the host university.

We aim to support the most outstanding applicants from outside the UK and are able to offer a very limited number of bursaries that will enable full studentships to be awarded to international (EU and non-EU) applicants. These full studentships will only be awarded to exceptional quality candidates, due to the highly competitive nature of this scheme.

The YBDTP is committed to recruiting extraordinary future scientists regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation or career pathway to date. We understand that commitment and excellence can be shown in many ways and have built our recruitment process to reflect this. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly those underrepresented in science, who have curiosity, creativity and a drive to learn new skills.

Not all projects will be funded; a limited number of candidates will be appointed via a competitive process.

English language: If English isn't your first language, you may need to provide evidence of your English language ability. Please see the English language requirements for the host university.

https://www.hud.ac.uk/international/courses-and-entry-requirements/international-entry-requirements/

How to apply

Application deadline: 5pm (UK time), Wednesday 7th January 2026

To submit your application, click on the link to the Expression of Interest form in the Funding Notes section of any of your chosen projects. You can apply for up to two YBDTP projects (which can be at different universities).

If you have any questions about the application process, please email YBDTP@leeds.ac.uk

If you have any questions about the project you are interested in, please email the project supervisor (details inside the project description).

How we allocate: Shortlisting will take place as soon as possible after the closing date and successful applicants will be notified promptly. If you're shortlisted, you'll be invited for an interview on a date to be confirmed in February 2025. You'll be notified as soon as possible after the interview dates whether your application has been successful, placed on a reserve list or unsuccessful. If you are successful, you'll be required to confirm your intention to accept the studentship within 10 days.

Terms and conditions: The studentships are fully funded for four years, and you must complete your PhD in four years.

You'll receive the UKRI minimum doctoral stipend per year for your living costs, which is paid to you in regular instalments. The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) stipend is tax free and does not need to be paid back.

International students will need to have sufficient funds to cover the costs of their student visa, NHS health surcharge, travel insurance and travel to the UK as these are excluded from UKRI funding.

Funding Notes

To apply for a studentship from the Yorkshire Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership to undertake this project, please complete an expression of interest form for October 2026 recruitment here:

https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/leeds/yorkshire-bioscience-dtp-expression-of-interest-form-1

Establishing structure-function relationships and economic and environmental merits of arabinoxylan materials from integrated biorefineries

Supervisor: Professor Grant Campbell

Arabinoxylans (AX) are a class of novel and functional hemicellulose fibre materials well matched to co-production with bioethanol in an integrated biorefinery, with potential to become a multi-billion-pound market. This PhD project will investigate co-production of a portfolio of AX products in biorefineries in terms of structure of different AX fractions, their functional performance in bread systems, their integration with bioethanol production and their contributions to the techno-economics and life cycle impacts of the biorefinery and its wider synergies with the food, feed and non-food sectors.

Drawing on expertise from the Universities of Huddersfield and York, the project will aim to clarify structure-function relationships for end-use applications in breadmaking (the most likely initial market for healthy and functional AX-based fibre products), using a patent-pending novel method for quantifying effects of AXs on bread quality. AXs from wheat, corn, barley and sugarcane bagasse will be systematically degraded and fractionated, with the fractions characterised for size, structure and composition and their performance in bread systems modelled. The project will update previous techno-economic and process integration studies of AX co-production with bioethanol and extend these to consider life cycle impacts, including social LCA to consider the social benefits of healthy AX-based bakery ingredients, alongside fractions for other applications including animal feed.

The project will establish the scientific basis for understanding how AX size, structure and composition relate to functional performance. It will thus give guidance to biorefineries regarding AX products with commercial potential, to the bakery sector regarding AX products giving functional benefits, and to the animal feed sector regarding AX products with nutritional benefits, thus giving confidence for the creation of commercial sources and markets for these novel biomaterials, and opening the way to extending the portfolio of AX- and other hemicellulose-based products into food and non-food markets.

The ideal candidate will be highly numerate and skilled in producing high quality experimental data and undertaking mathematical analyses, preferably with a chemical engineering, food engineering or similar first degree, and with an interest in sustainable food systems.