Design PhD

Student PhD research in design at the University of Brighton is embedded within an active research community whose supervisory support extends to expertise from around the university including craft and decorative arts practices, textiles, engineering and medicine in both theory and practice-based design research.

You will join an academic community whose research encompasses applied and theoretical approaches in equal measure, much of it marked by interdisciplinarity and international cooperation, through leadership and participation in major grant projects.

We have nurtured research students through to successful careers, with Design PhD projects in Brighton that have included: sustainable design, design for health and wellbeing, product design, contemporary textiles and digital user-experience.

Apply now, selecting Architecture and DESIGN in the portal

Our registration system collects design PhD disciplines under the strand Architecture and Design. Please choose this option in the portal.

Apply with us for funding through the AHRC Techne Doctoral Training Partnership

Key information

As a Design PhD student, you will:

have a supervisory team comprising two members of academic staff. Depending on your particular area study you may also have additional supervisors from other research institutions or external partners.
become part of an active and engaged community of research learning, leading talks, and social events with opportunities to present your work as it progresses and network with other researchers
have access to excellent resources such as rapid prototyping and studio facilities as well as the Design Archives, which look after many leading collections related to the design profession.

Academic environment

Your research community as a PhD student member is likely to be within either the School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering or the School of Art and Media with a possibility of supervision across the two. Both include international PhD students who undertake a broad range of projects.

The research environment for architecture and design at the University of Brighton was recognised as one of the very best in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, with a long history in design excellence and innovation. We were founder partners in the prestigious AHRC Doctoral Training partnerships, Techne and Design Star, and continue to support applicants towards Techne funding.

The wider University of Brighton provides a stimulating, creative and intellectually vibrant context for research. While you are likely to be based in the specialist School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering, our academic work draws on wider, collaborative potential from the Design and Craft and the Fashion and Textile areas of the School of Art and Media, Built Environment in the School of Environment and Technology, and Design History in the School of Humanities. Your PhD Design or PhD Architecture supervisory teams may include academics from these schools or the wider university.

We would particularly welcome approaches for supervision that reflect the following specialist research and enterprise strengths in the School of Architecture and Design.

Design for society
Design futures
Sustainable design
Practice-based design
Systems thinking, systemic design and cybernetics
Design in community, society and government
Designing sustainable urban living
Transforming design curation
Design methods, theory, and ethics
Educational practices in design
Design history and theory (see also History of Art and Design PhD)

While considering supervision from the University of Brighton, you may like to explore the following PGR programme areas, too.

History of Art and Design PhD

Built Environment PhD

Art and creative practices PhD

Some of our supervisors

Dr Tom Ainsworth

Tom Ainsworth is the Subject Area Lead for Architecture and Design and the MA Sustainable Design Course Leader. His supervisory interests are Social and Environmental Justices, Progressive and Disruptive Design Research, and Design for Health and Wellbeing.

Current Supervision

Chantal Spencer, University of Brighton. Working Title: Moving Beyond Participatory Models to Methodologies of Radical Intersectional Equity. University of Brighton Funded Scholarship.

Kristen Bullivant, University of Brighton. Working Title: Designing Sustainable Food Futures: a design anthropological approach to cultural value and culinary capital in shaping ‘sustainable’ diets. AHRC funded.

Sally Sutherland, University of Brighton. Working title: Design, Culture and Gender Matters: An Exploration of Design as a Socio-material Tool for UK Public Breastfeeding Research. AHRC Design Star funded.

Conferrals

Merryn Haynes-Gadd, University of Brighton. Thesis Title: Emotional Durability Design Nine: Developing a tool for product longevity. AHRC Design Star funded.

Examinations

PhD Examination, Giovanni Marmont, University of Brighton. Title: Nanopoetics of Use: Kinetic prefiguration and dispossessed sociality in the undercommons. AHRC Design Star funded

PhD Examination, Catherine Speight, University of Brighton. Title: Looking Understanding and Making Meaning: HE Ceramics Students as a ‘Community of Learners’. AHRC Funded.PhD Examination, Tobias Mulling, University of Brighton. Title: Embracing the Gestural Interface: Designing and Evaluating a Mid-air Gestural Approach based on Manipulation.

Dr Katy Beinart

I’m interested in supervising practice-based PhDs, particularly those that are interdisciplinary and combine aspects of art practice and theory with architecture/urban studies/spatial practice alongside other disciplines and practices (and may have a socially engaged or participatory element), and which might explore themes of migration, heritage, contested space and regeneration.

Current PhD Students:

Ilenia Atzori: From ruins to community heritage: The role of storytelling in building a collective memory

Antony Dixon: Here is where we meet (Body, Matter and Things): A sensory investigation, through co-creative practice, of the misplaced and found.

Jessica Melville-Brown: Co-designing the future: An exploration into the development of new methods for creative engagement, examining the influence of gender roles, socio-economic and ethno-cultural factors in the co-design process with young people.

PhD Examinations:

James O'Leary: Interface Architecture: Towards the transformation of Belfast's 'Peacewalls' through Situated Practice (Internal Examiner)

M Phil examinations:

Lida Driva: The Operation of the Hidden. Towards an understanding of architectural and urban space: the case of Omonia Square (External Examiner)

Tanya Dean

Material innovation
Design and craft aplication and cultural value and meanings of materials
Plastics, polymers and composites and 'alternatives
Reuse and recycling

Dr Jules Findley

Postgraduate supervision in Textiles, Fashion, Fashion Communication, Drawing, encompassing embodied materiality, my work in handmade paper and practice-based, installation art. More recently, substantial research as co-investigator with an AHRC project in sustainabile materials in Fashion and Textiles. I am interested in waste in the Fashion, Textiles, Accessories and Leather industries, together with materials, circular economy, reuse and repurposing.

Recent PhD supervision:

University of Brighton - Claire Dawson - Research Title: 'Clothing Reuse in the Circular Econonmy: An exploration of the challenges and opportuniteis for UK high street fashion brands' - [March 2023 - July 2029]

University of Brighton - Martin Irorere - Research Title: 'Closing the Fashion Sustainability Gap through textile Recycling: Evaluation of UK Gen-Z consumer attitudes, knowledge, and acceptance of textile recycling'. - [March 2021 - July 2026]

Anglia Ruskin University - Amanda Lavis - Research Title: 'Woven Language: A practice-based research investigation Exploring the Textile Praxis in Children's Book Illustration' [March 2021 - expected completion 2025]

External PhD Viva examination experience, University of Chester October 2020 - Georgina Spry - 'A New Felt Presence: Making and Learning as part of a Community of Women Feltmakers'

Nicholas Gant

I have supervised and examined students relating to social and sustainable design (and the link between them) utlising propositional and constructive methods.

I welcome supporting projects that explore materials and making / materials and meaning making / material innovation, the valorisation of waste (through design and making) and circular economies. I lead research projects that engage design and making in the context of biodiversity, nature recovery, health and well-being and social empowerment as well as the co-design and use of craft, design and technology in empowering disengaged and / or marginalised groups and communities in neighbourhood development and participatory planning.

Dr Damon Taylor

My research centres around the relationship between the designed environment and the politics of action, particularly in relation to issues of embodiment and the ideology of the made world. I am interested in the history of ergonomics, the material culture of the British pub and the implications of cybernetic research. I take a transdisciplinary approach to the study of design, including methodologies such as design history, design studies, anthropology, social and cognitive psychology, and philosophy. I am interested in supervising projects concerned with design activism, social design, critical approaches to design, emotion and design, affect and design practice, the politics of design history, craft practice, and the relationship between design, craft and other disciplines.

For further supervisory staff including cross-disciplinary options, please visit research staff on our research website.

Making an application

You will apply to the University of Brighton through our online application portal. When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the University of Brighton staff. We recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Fees and funding

Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2024–25

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

MPhil/PhD
	Full-time	Part-time
UK	£4,786	£2,393
International (including EU)	£15,900	N/A
International students registered in the School of Humanities and Social Science or in the School of Business and Law	£14,500	N/A

PhD by Publication
Full-time	Part-time
N/A	£2,393

Contact Brighton Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the University of Brighton we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the Brighton Doctoral College page.

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.