Vacancy Details

Description

PhD Studentship – Agroecological Transition

The University of Gloucestershire’s Countryside and Community Research Institute, supported by the ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership for Wales (Wales DTP), invites applications for funded PhD study in the topic “Agroecological transition: understanding farmers’ cultural identities and social practices to enable mixed farming futures (in collaboration with the Soil Association)” which will be supervised by Professors Damian Maye and Julie Ingram.

Agroecology is an essential innovation pathway for sustainable land use, maximising the use of ecological processes in the functioning of agroecosystems (Poux and Aubert, 2018; Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, 2020). However, there is limited social science analysis of how this agro-ecological transition is understood, practised and imagined from a farmer perspective (van der Ploeg et al, 2019). This PhD aims to fill this gap through a socio-cultural analysis of perceptions and practices on livestock and arable farms. Advocating ‘mixed farming’ portfolios, it considers how ruminant livestock and all-arable systems can adopt agroecology.

The student will be located within the Soil Association’s Farming and Land Use Policy group and will be part of an exciting new socio-economic programme related to agroecology.

Funding is provided at UKRI standard rates.

Please read the Information document for full details of the studentship and how to apply.

Closing Date: Midday 21st May 2021

Interview Date: Early June

The University understands the benefits of recruiting a diverse range of people and welcomes applications from under-represented sections of the community.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader, guaranteeing to offer an interview to anyone who meets the definition of disability set out in the Equality Act 2010 and who meets all of the essential criteria contained within the person specification.