2026 Studentships

Studentship projects for cohort 2026/27.

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To see projects led by specific Host Organizations, under specific themes, or CASE studentships, please choose from the following menus.

Iapetus projects for the 2026/27 cohort will be added here from September 2025, with a complete list of projects by the beginning of November 2025. The Studentship Competition will open in November 2025. Please see this page for more details.

Stratosphere–Troposphere Coupling and Its Role in Antarctic Coastal Melt Events and Supraglacial Lake Formation

Tracing Micronutrient behaviour accompanying forestation and climate change

Plinian eruption deposits from Las Cañadas Caldera, Tenerife: constraining eruption frequencies, eruption cycles and the Quaternary evolution of the island

From Wandering Albatrosses to Hedgehogs: Using AI and Citizen Science to Improve Biodiversity Monitoring under Ground Truth Uncertainty

Assessing the Hydro ecological Impacts of Climate-Driven Extreme Events on UK Rivers

Developing a landslide dynamic hazard model

Soil sulfur: a source or sink of greenhouse gases in boreal landscapes?

Microbial ecological archaeology of Antarctic microbes through single cell genomics

Passive Seismic Imaging of Under-explored Central Iceland

Getting to the core of the Great Glen Fault

Earth’s Deep Time CO2 and Mass Extinctions

Can microclimate refugia save an iconic floral assemblage under climate change?

Predator defence in anemonefishes

Pleistocene to present-day sea level puzzles in Patagonia: disentangling the sea-level budget to improve regional ice history.

Listening to Food Webs: Ecoacoustic insights into Bird Predator–Prey Networks in Changing Landscapes

Point process methods for mapping wildlife distributions from biased and incomplete data

Microbial degradation of glacial POPs

AI-Driven Satellite Embeddings for Fine-resolution Mapping and Tracking Global Coastal Vegetated Ecosystem Change (2017-2024)

The legacy of lost woods: soil microbial communities and the regeneration of the Caledonian Forest

Small-scale fisheries’ contributions to nutrition and food security under a changing climate

Light for Life: Optical Sensing Platforms for Environmental Water Quality Monitoring

Isotopic window into past & future of peatland methane emissions (ISOPEAT)

Volatile happenings on the igneous side of metamorphism

Drivers of changing geohazard exposure and risk in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya

The vulnerability of tourists to volcanic hazards in Indonesia

Weathering vs. climate change: Quantifying recent silicate weathering using novel isotope tracers

Mineral entrapment within protocells: key to the origin of life?

Fluid transport of heat and metals: understanding the formation of highly permeable fracture systems in granite

Reconstructing the South Orkney Ice Cap – a sentinel of Antarctic Ice Sheet change

Investigating records of terrestrial precursors in the early Solar System using Cr, Ni and Zn isotope compositions of meteorites

When nutrients turn toxic: how metals shape microbial coexistence

Landslide-flood interactions in the Himalayan mountain range in a warming climate

A beneficial plant-microbial interaction: the ecology of flax retting.

Unravelling the Co-evolution of Climate Extremes and Vegetation Dynamics across Global Ecosystems

Adapting to the Urban Night: Behavioural and Genomic Responses in Nocturnal Predators

Telling the time in turbulent oceans: How do phytoplankton use clocks and carbon to survive deep mixing?

The cognitive ecology of wild bumblebees

Exploring how plasticity and morphology shape life history strategies in ectotherms

Understanding Biological Responses to Arctic Sea-Ice Geoengineering climate intervention

Understanding how a threatened seabird moves across complex ocean energyscapes

How did Earth become a habitable planet? Revealing the origins of Earth’s water using Antarctic meteorites

Carbonatite exsolution from Nepheline Syenite: The Lillebukt Nepheline Syenite-Carbonatite Complex, Northern Norway

Environmental and ‘One Health’ ecology of clinically pathogenic fungi

The impact of horizontal gene transfer on the evolution of eukaryotes

The impacts of electromagnetic fields from offshore cabling on lobster (Homarus gammarus) and crab (Cancer pagurus) behaviour

Linking persistence, predictability and extremes in a changing climate

The evolution of reproductive isolation in rubyspot damselflies

Ecological Colonisation of New Anthropogenic Rocks

Integrating molecular dietary analysis, nutritional ecology and network inference to assess ecosystem service trade-offs in omnivorous beetles

Reservoirs of Bacterial Pathogens in Captive Animal Enclosures: Evolutionary Drivers in a Changing Climate

Healing and Harm: invasive species, medicinal plant use, and community-based conservation in South Africa

Sounding out the deep: using AI and passive acoustic monitoring to reveal spatial and temporal patterns in deep-sea ecosystems

Assessing the geothermal potential of Scottish granites by establishing their long-term thermal history

Representing runout in landslide nowcasts to improve disaster information and response

Eruptive Brines and Active Ice: Modelling Subduction, Brine Dynamics and Cryovolcanism on Jupiter’s Icy Moon Europa

What controls ice flow across Palmer and Ellsworth Lands, Antarctica?

Time-evolving hazard and risk from Glacial Lake Outburst Floods in Bhutan.

Designing Resilient Landscapes: Integrating Nature-based Solutions and Flood Defences into Catchments

Examining ecological shifts and impacts of adaptive divergence in response to geothermal habitats

Automated Continuous In-situ Dissolved Metal Monitoring & Modelling (ACID M3)

Characterisation and analysis of anthropogenically influenced fluvial catchments and geomorphology in the Philippines

How Age-Dependent Sexual Selection and Parity Mode Shape Fitness Trajectories in Reptile Reproduction

Understanding grounding line dynamics in response to ice stream uncoupling

The origin of animals: Building a precise timeline from the geological record

How does ice flow enhancement and rearrangement impact the West Antarctic Ice Sheet?

Greenhouse gas balance in an agricultural grassland system with enhanced rock weathering of basalt as a carbon dioxide removal strategy

A metallogenic model for lithium and rare metal resources in the Glen Gairn granite

MINELOOP: Investigating MINEwater systems using closed-LOOP geothermal technologies

Using functional genomics to assess population health after a local reintroduction of the field cricket in Cornwall

Origin and evolutionary dynamics of rainforest assembly in the Fiji Islands

Sundaland Reimagined: The Reconstruction of a Lost Cenozoic Continent

What happens to millennia of mercury contamination in peatlands under a warming climate?

Nature-based solutions for coastal management – The role of biofilms in induced carbonate precipitation and sediment stability

From preferences to pollination: do hummingbirds and bees differ in how they choose flowers?

Investigating the organic matter reactivity continuum in UK Coastal Shelf Seas.

Feathered Witnesses: Unravelling the Impact of Habitat Loss on Neotropical Avifauna with Stable Isotope Analysis

Scalable early warning and rapid response data systems for invasive species biosecurity.

Environmental drivers in archaeology: past, present and future under the lens of geophysics

Resilient Coastal Communities: Nature-based Solutions to Mitigate Compound Flood Risks

From Forests to Fevers: Network Models of Disease Emergence in Human-Modified Landscapes

Determining the Impacts of Wildfires, from a local to global scale, using Satellite-based Observations.

Machine Learning for Innovative Slope Design to Radically Decarbonise Open Pit Mining

Quantifying Past Variations in Southern Ocean Primary Productivity from Sulfur Isotopes in Antarctic Ice Cores

Sediment release from glacial valleys in a changing climate: Interactions between valley morphology, sediment dynamics, and climate variations

Peat soil crusts: formation, desiccation and modelling of transport by wind

Role of Plant Functional Diversity in Modulating Grassland Responses to Grazing and Drought

Mathematical models for treescape resilience in a changing climate

Mathematical modelling of Ecosystem Resilience in a Changing Climate

Understanding the role of complexity and diversity in riparian woodland resilience to extreme events.

Source or sink? The roles of glacier melt and sediment transport for the carbon budget of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Monitoring Scotland’s fresh waters from space: re-engineering the state-of-art using artificial intelligence

Trade-offs between wildness and wellbeing in restored landscapes: blue health, beavers and rewilding

Modelling internal tsunamis generated by glacial calving

Tracking and tracing contaminated sediment in historic mining headwater catchments

Antarctic sea ice, circulation and ice sheet interactions in the Southeastern Weddell Sea

Changing freshwater inputs to the Southern Ocean due to rapid climatic change

Vocal behaviour of killer whales and the dual pressures of ship noise and predation on Arctic marine mammals

How Earthquakes Become Tsunamis: Investigating Rupture Propagation into Subduction Zone Accretionary Prisms

From Sound to Structure: Explainable AI for Multimodal Ecosystem Health Monitoring

Investigating past changes in Greenland melting and its impacts on ocean circulation as a key to the future.

Quantifying the frequency and causes of extreme wet and dry periods in the Himalayas

Computational innovation for the energy transition: Bayesian stratigraphic correlation of subsurface data

Physics, biology and ecology of toxic plankton blooms

Rockfall detection and modelling in the rapidly deglaciating Mont Blanc massif

Characterising methane productivity during the Late Holocene in Arctic Sweden

Assessing Magmatic Dead Carbon Effects on Radiocarbon Dates: A Multi-Method Investigation of Volcanic CO₂ Degassing at Laacher See, Germany

What drives aggression? Linking Ecology, Evolution, and Genes

Critical Metal insights from historic mines around Loch Tay : An atomistic approach to understanding critical metal enrichment pathways in mineral and mine wastes

Measuring the isotopic fingerprint of Greenland Ice Sheet melt

Evolutionary Trade-offs in Edible Insect Breeding: When Sexual and Artificial Selection Collide

The role of ditches in the global carbon cycle: A critical & unrecognised player.

The glaciers of South Georgia from the 1950s to 2100 CE

Reconstructing glacier histories and investigating glacial geomorphology in the Sør Rondane Mountains, East Antarctica.

Rewired ecosystems: connecting structure, function and biodiversity in beaver-engineered landscapes

Holocene ice sheet-ocean interaction and glacimarine sedimentation in Greenland fjords

Discovering the long-term extent and chronology of traditional dryland agriculture

How important is mantle carbonation in Earth’s long-term carbon cycle?

Climate change impacts on soil biodiversity and functioning in mountain ecosystems

Hidden Risks of Saline Intrusion: Climate-Driven Sea-Level Rise and Geotechnical Implications for Coastal Stability

The role of tree-based landscapes in improving food security and nutrition across West Africa

Investigating multiple causes of saltmarsh compaction – how important is biodegradation?

Investigating the oceanic impacts of Greenland’s meltwater

Modelling landscape-level approaches for mitigating the evolution of pesticide resistance

Heavy metal insights into the formation of planet Earth

Probabilistic flood prediction and modelling using machine learning

Testing Local Adaptation During Ecosystem Restoration in Burying Beetles

Diffusion Clocks: Decoding Magma Ascent Speed Beneath Volcanoes

Sustainability in creel fisheries

Investigating interactions between subglacial landscape evolution and Antarctic Ice Sheet behaviour

Coastal Hydrodynamic Water Quality Modelling using Machine Learning Techniques

Reactive Fracturing and Carbonation Dynamics in Mafic and Ultramafic Rocks under CO₂ Storage Conditions

Advancing ultra-high resolution palaeoenvironmental records from lake sediment cores through integrated laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy and hyperspectral imaging

Quantifying indoor and outdoor air pollution in central Scotland to support actions to improve health (Forth-ERA)

Modelling vector control for Aedes-borne arboviruses

Formation of rare metal (Li-Ta-Sn) melts on the Precambrian Earth

The history of tropical peatland vegetation in Peruvian Amazonia and implications for conservation and management

Beyond the Target: Integrating microchemistry and morphology to uncover diversity and connectivity in four non-target species from the deep waters of the Southern Ocean

PROTECTION OF SEABED CARBON IN SHELF SEDIMENT

Reconstructing past ice-sheet retreat and ice-ocean interactions from marine sediment cores.

The coral biomineralisation response to temperature and pH change in the Central Pacific over the last 500ka

Of woods and waders: balancing the competing benefits of conservation and restoration

Occupancy, density and the ecology of terrestrial British mammals

Din in the dark: the effects of anthropogenic noise on hibernation behaviour and physiology in hedgehogs

Cracks in the ice: Disentangling the threats to Arctic ice shelves

Explorations of symbiosis along a parasite-mutualist continuum

From ice to ecosystem: assessing the risk of glacier melt and legacy contamination for reindeer in Sápmi (Lapland)

Leveraging wild hybrids to map the genomic mechanisms of life-history variation in a primitive vertebrate.

Understanding the diverse impacts of human activity on primate behaviour and physiology

Modelling urban infrastructure interdependencies under flood conditions via dynamic graph learning

Role of turbidity currents in organic carbon and nutrient transport to deep-sea environment

Modelling effects of climate change on future kelp habitats and associated commercial fisheries

Paths to Cooperation: The Combined Effects of Social, Network, and Environmental Factors on the Success of Cooperative Strategies in Bacteria

Blue Carbon accumulation, transformation and storage: Quantifying biogeochemical processes in saltmarsh ecosystems.

Peat-forming seasonally flooded forests of the Peruvian Amazon: distribution, carbon storage, and long-term ecology

Physical and chemical drivers of bedrock river channel erosion

Unravelling nutrient feedbacks across the Great Oxidation Event

Transforming landscapes: the role of large herbivores in Holocene ecosystem dynamics

The contribution of mesopelagic fish to the functioning of the Southern Ocean Ecosystem in a changing climate – an isotopic study.

Secure and Decentralized Federated Learning for Environmental Forecasting

Under Pressure: comparative assessment of the effects of hydrostatic pressure, and oxygen availability on marine and freshwater animal physiology

Understanding the ecological interplay between tree planting and natural processes to create future forests

Tectonics, Topography, and Transport: Sediment routing systems and sinks of the Strathclyde Group, Midland Valley Scotland.

Reproductive isolation in a species group of Drosophila

Powering Net Zero from Below: The Future of Mine Water Geothermal Energy

Seascape ecology of the Antarctic Peninsula

Intelligent Geothermal Energy Development: AI-Enhanced Modelling and Decision-Making Under Uncertainty