Collaborative doctoral studentships

Museum of Natural History interior view of roof with lighting

Collaborative doctoral studentships

Oxford University Gardens, Libraries and Museum hosts doctoral studentships from a number of schemes across the UK

Oxford GLAM's AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP)

Oxford GLAM's AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) began in 2016 and operates across the six gardens, libraries and museums: the Ashmolean Museum, Bodleian Libraries, History of Science Museum, Museum of Natural History, Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum and the Pitt Rivers.

The Collaborative Doctoral Partnership training grants produce research that helps us to develop new perspectives on our collections and to share knowledge more widely and effectively with a range of audiences, while also training a new generation of scholars working between the academic and heritage sectors.

Each CDP studentship is jointly supervised in partnership between one or more of Oxford University museums and academics from UK Higher Education Institutions (HEI).

The partner HEI administers the studentship, receiving funds from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for the student’s fees and maintenance in line with a standard AHRC award.

In addition to this full studentship award for fees and maintenance, Oxford University museums provide up to £2,000 per annum per student (pro rata) to cover the costs of travel between the HEI and Oxford, and related costs in carrying out research. Studentships can be based at any UK HEI apart from Oxford University.

For general enquiries about Oxford University GLAM Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships please contact Dr Harriet Warburton, GLAM Research and Impact Manager, at harriet.warburton@glam.ox.ac.uk. For enquiries about specific projects please contact the project supervisors named below.

Collaborative Doctoral Awards

GLAM hosts a number of doctoral studentships who are funded by other Collaborative Doctoral Award schemes, including the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

3D printed model, Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Evaluating the Influence of Tangible 3D Printed Replicas on the Museum Experience

The University of Warwick and Oxford University Museum of Natural History are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded doctoral grant from October 2023. The project will explore in-depth the impact of tangible 3D printed replicas on education outcomes and visitor experience. It will employ a rigorous, mixed-methods approach borrowing heavily from the well-established discipline of industrial user experience (UX) and user centred design, augmenting traditional museum evaluation techniques with robust UX methods that have been extensively tested in other industries.

This studentship will begin on 1 October 2023 and will be jointly supervised by Professor Mark Williams & Dr Paul Wilson, University of Warwick, and Professor Paul Smith & Janet Stott, Museum of Natural History, Oxford.

For full details of the studentship, please follow the link to the advert on the University of Warwick website.

Please note that applications to this studentship have now closed.

Bronze stud with curved triskele design filled with red enamel

Rivers of Bronze in the age of Iron (RoBIn): an interdisciplinary study of Iron Age copper-alloy material culture from the middle–upper Thames Valley

The University of Reading and the Ashmolean Museum are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded doctoral grant from October 2023. The project will enable a student to explore the production and circulation of metalwork in the middle and upper Thames Valley during the Iron Age in Britain (c. 750 BCE–43 CE), using an integrated characterisation approach to Iron Age metallurgy.. The successful applicant will have autonomy to shape the project based on their interests and will divide their time between the two institutions, receiving advanced research training and benefiting from experience in the Ashmolean's incredibly rich and diverse collections.

This studentship will begin on 1 October 2023 and will be jointly supervised by Dr Peter Bray & Professor Duncan Garrow, University of Reading, and Dr Courtney Nimura & Dr Kelly Domoney, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

For full details of the studentship, please follow the link to the advert on the University of Reading website.

Please note that applications to this studentship have now closed.

Knossos storage jar with octopus design, Ashmolean Museum

Creating the first Europeans. Tracing the development of Sir Arthur Evans’s vision of Minoan civilisation through documents and objects

The University of Bristol (School of Humanities, Department of Classics and Ancient History) and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford (Department of Antiquities), are pleased to announce a fully-funded four-year (full-time) / up to eight years (part-time) AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership grant from October 2023 (or January 2024) to conduct research on the Sir Arthur Evans Archive and related Aegean Bronze Age collections in the Ashmolean Museum. By examining Evans's unpublished writings, held in the Sir Arthur Evans Archive at the Ashmolean, alongside his publications and the objects he acquired, the student will assess how Evans's vision of the Minoans developed over the decades either side of World War I.

This studentship will begin on 1 October 2023 and will be jointly supervised by Professor Nicoletta Momigliano and Dr Shelley Hales, University of Bristol, and Dr Andrew Shapland and Dr Eleanor Standley, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

For full details of the studentship, please follow the link to the advert on the University of Bristol website.

Please note that applications to this studentship have now closed.

Decolonizing Collections: The Reception and Consumption of Classical casts in pedagogy in the British Empire

Amalia Wickstead (UCL, in partnership with the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)

AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Professor Phiroze Vasunia (UCL) and Dr Milena Melfi and Dr Shailendra Bhandare (Oxford)
Centring the marginal: Western medieval manuscript fragments in the Bodleian Library

Jemima Bennett (University of Kent, in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr David Rundle and Dr Emily Guerry (Kent) and Matthew Holford and Nicole Gilroy (Oxford)

Other lives of the image: examining the meanings of an apartheid-era collection of photographs in South Africa today

Anna Sephton (University of Brighton, in partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum/African Studies Centre, University of Oxford)

AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Professor Darren Newbury and Dr Julia Winckler (Brighton) and Dr Chris Morton and Professor Jonny Steinberg (Oxford)
Decolonizing Collections: Investigating Knowledge Formation Networks in Colonial India with specific reference to Numismatics

Shreya Gupta (University of Exeter, in partnership with the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)

AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Professor Nandini Chatterjee and Professor Nicola Thomas (Exeter) and Dr Shailen Bhandare (Oxford)
Coming Out of the Shadows: Women and Geology in Oxford, 1813-1914

Grace Exley (University of Leeds, in partnership with Oxford University Museum of Natural History)

AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Jon Topham and Professor Graeme Gooday (Leeds) and Eliza Howlett and Professor Paul Smith (Oxford)
Mental Models of the Organisation of Scholarly Information Across the Academy: Disciplinary Similarities and Differences

Hye Lim (Joy) Nam (University of Glasgow, in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries)

AHRC-funded Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) CDA student, supervised by Professor Paul Gooding and Professor Lorna Hughes (Glasgow), and Dr Frankie Wilson (Oxford)
Culture-led wellbeing: investigating the changing skills of the cultural workforce

Amisha Karia (University of Leicester, in partnership with Oxford University Gardens, Libraries and Museums)

ESRC-funded Midlands Graduate School DTP student, supervised by Professor Richard Sandell and Dr Nuala Morse (Leicester) and Dr Hattie Warburton (Oxford)

Biocultural knowledge, power and poetics in South American featherwork
Rosa Dyer (Birkbeck College, University of London, in partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Professor Luciana Martins and Dr Carmen Fracchia (Birkbeck); Dr Laura Van Broekhoven, Professor Andrew Gosler and Jeremy Uden (Oxford)
The Duchess of Botany: Mary Somerset, Jacob Bobart, and the Formation of the Oxford Botanic Garden
India Cole (Queen Mary University of London in collaboration with Oxford Botanic Garden)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Richard Coulton and Professor Markman Ellis (Queen Mary); Professor Simon Hiscock and Dr Chris Thorogood (Oxford)
Early Modern Copper Plates at the Bodleian Libraries
Chiara Betti (School of Advanced Study, UoL, in collaboration with the Bodleian Libraries)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Elizabeth Savage and Dr Laura Cleaver (London) and Dr Alexandra Franklin and Mike Webb (Oxford)
Gender and Arctic field science
Nai Zakharia (University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Oxford University Museum of Natural History)
AHRC Open-Oxford-Cambridge DTP student, supervised by Professor Richard Powell (Cambridge) and Professor Paul Smith (Oxford)

The evaluation of museum engagement: User Centred Design principles and the development of audience-focussed interpretation
Ellie King (University of Warwick in partnership with Oxford University Museum of Natural History)
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership student, supervised by Professor M Paul Smith at Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Professor Mark Williams and Dr Paul Wilson at Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at University of Warwick
The Iron Age to Roman transition in Britain from the perspective of coin hoards
Anni Byard (University of Leicester and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership student, supervised by Prof. Colin Haselgrove and Prof. David Mattingly (Leicester), Prof. Chris Howgego and Prof. Chris Gosden (Oxford)
Material cultures of refuge in Lebanon
Hadiqa Khan (University College London (UCL) and Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford)

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership student, supervised by Dr Matthew Davies and Dr Hanna Baumann (University College London, UCL), Professor Dan Hicks (Pitt Rivers Museum) and Dr Letty Ten Harkel (School of Archaeology, University of Oxford)
Science in the service of religion? A museum study

Mathilde Daussy-Renaudin (University College London (UCL) in partnership with the History of Science Museum in Oxford)

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership student, supervised by Dr Silke Ackermann (Oxford) and Professor Michael J. Reiss (London)
Boundaries of the Book in a Digital Age

Justine Provino (University of Cambridge in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries)

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award, Open-Oxford-Cambridge DTP student, supervised by Dr Jason Scott-Warren (Faculty of English, University of Cambridge), and by Dr Christopher Fletcher (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford).

The Nature of Replication: Re-contextualizing Natural History Models and Casts from 19th to early 20th century Britain and beyond
Elaine Charwat (University College London) in partnership with the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Alice Stevenson (UCL) and Mark Carnall (OUMNH)
Museum Collections, Academic Teaching, and the Making of Geology in the Nineteenth-Century University
Susan Newell (University of Leeds in partnership with the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Ashmolean Museum)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Jon Topham (Leeds), Ms. Eliza Howlett (Head of Earth Collections, Oxford University Museum of Natural History) and Dr Jim Harris (Ashmolean Museum)

Archaeological Plaster Casts: In Search of Authenticity
Abbey Ellis (University of Leicester in partnership with the Ashmolean Museum)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Sandra Dudley (Leicester), Dr Milena Melfi and Professor Bert Smith (Oxford)
Where Art and Science Meet: Art and Design at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Helen Goulston (University of Birmingham in partnership with the Oxford University Museum of Natural History)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Claire Jones (Birmingham) and Professor Paul Smith (Oxford)
Visual Archaeology: the photographic character of the archaeology of OGS Crawford
Beth Hodgett (Birkbeck, University of London in partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Lesley McFayden and Dr Jennifer Baird (Birkbeck) and Professor Chris Gosden and Dr Chris Morton (Oxford)

Gold Coinage in the Roman World
George Green (University of Warwick in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Professor Kevin Butcher (Warwick), Professor Christopher Howgego and Professor Mark Pollard (Oxford)
Modernization, cultural exchanges and innovation in Russian print culture: St Petersburg in the Talbot Collection
Emily Roy (University of Cambridge in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum)
AHRC-funded GLAM CDP student, supervised by Dr Rosalind Blakesley and Dr Wendy Pullan (Cambridge) and Professor Catherine Whistler (Oxford)

Collaborative doctoral studentships