PhD Studentship - Being a Learner

Being a Learner: Dealing with ambiguity and complexity in research and knowledge work


We have secured funding for a new PhD studentship to be based at GCU. Here are the details:

We live in an increasingly complex and ambiguous world – sometimes described as supercomplex: ‘a world where nothing can be taken for granted, where no frame of understanding or of action can be entertained with any security’ (Barnett, 2000). Preparing and supporting researchers to engage effectively in such a world has become a key challenge to universities.

The proposed research will explore the attributes required and employed at transition from graduate to postgraduate and into a research-based career. This study will build on the pioneering work of the Caledonian Graduate Centre with Vitae, the Universities of Reading, Manchester and Southampton in developing a researcher’s attribute (disposition and qualities) framework for research students, researchers and research leaders which has benefits that relate to academic development.

A key feature of this research proposal is that it draws together expertise in education research from across the University. The supervisory team (Dr Colin Milligan, Professor Bonnie Steves and Professor David Smith) are specialists in learning communities, graduate researcher education and higher education policy respectively.

Applications are invited for a PhD Research Studentship within the Education Research Area at Glasgow Caledonian University. The studentship is for a period of three years, subject to satisfactory progress and provides payment of tuition fees at the UK/EU rate plus an annual stipend of £13,900 [please note that students from outside the EU are required to pay the difference between International and EU fees, currently this would amount to £6,100 per annum]. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to develop their research skills by contributing to other research activities in the centres for up to six hours each week.

Further details of the studentship including educational requirements and instructions for applicants are available as a PDF document: BeingALearner.pdf