Current PhD topics and studentships

PhD opportunities

A fully funded PhD in Artificial Intelligence applied to Animal-Computer Interaction, funded by Pet Plan Charitable Trust has become available at The Open University to work on a project within the field of Animal-Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence. The project will support the work of bio-detection dogs trained for cancer detection. The successful candidate will start in October 2025 and be funded for three years. Details here. The studentship is open to both UK and international students. Application deadline: 24th January 2025.

A fully funded PhD in any area of the School's research is available for full time PhD study, starting in October 2025 and funded for three years. Details of the studentship can be found here. The studentship is open to both UK and international students. Application deadline: 24th January 2025.

The following is a list of topics our academics proposed for PhD projects. These projects are open to both full-time and part-time PhD study. Please contact the relevant academic for further information and advice. The application procedure can be found here. 

Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing

• Statistical Models for Analysing and Generating Music Contact: Dr Robin Charles Laney
• Collaborative Environments for Creative Uses of Musical Information Retrieval Contact: Dr Robin Charles Laney
• Algorithmic Generation of Computer Game Music Contact: Dr Robin Charles Laney
• Musical Contrast and Similarity Contact: Dr Robin Charles Laney
• Automatic Generation of Dialogue Acts: Understanding Dialogue through Computational Modelling Contact: Dr Paul Piwek
• Dialogue Games, Argumentation and Meaning: Computational modelling of Brandom's inferentialism Contact: Dr Paul Piwek
• From data to questions and stories: inclusive technologies for data exploration Contact: Dr Paul Piwek
• Explainable machine learning and natural language processing for automatic assessment Contact: Dr Alistair Willis
• Lightweight semantics for text similarity Contact: Dr Alistair Willis
• Semantics of ambiguity Contact: Dr Alistair Willis
• Framing Generative AI: Chatbot conceit or intelligent interaction? Contact: Dr Mark Hall
• Exploring Quantum Models for Contextual Classification and Decision Making over Online Information Spaces Contact: Prof. Dawei Song
• Incorporating Domain-specific Knowledge into Pre-trained Language Model based Controllable Text Generation Contact: Prof. Dawei Song
• Simulation Models for Theoretical Life Science Research Contact: Dr Adam Linson
• Adaptive Continuous Learning Contact: Dr Ian Kenny, Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• Exploring Machine Learning and Computational Techniques to Inform Rapid Adaptive Climate Change Contact: Dr Ian Kenny, Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• How Do you have an AI forget - responsibly? Contact: Dr Ian Kenny, Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• Engagement of humane AI in practice Contact: Dr. Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui

Critical information studies

• Decolonial Computing Contact: Dr Mustafa Ali

Interaction design

• Interfacing with complex data: Interactive pattern exploration and discovery by domain experts Contact: Dr Adam Linson
• Interfaces for life logging mood and affect Contact: Dr Daniel Gooch
• Designing for pro-social interventions and responses to reduce online harms Contact: Dr Min Zhang
• Music and Human Centred Computing Contact: Dr Simon Holland
• Digital Health and Interaction Design Contact: Dr Simon Holland
• Animal-Computer Interaction Contact: Dr Clara Mancini
• Socialised Exploration and Sense-Making over Online Information Spaces Contact: Prof. Dawei Song
• Decision dashboards for clinicians to make sense of patient-collected data Contact: Dr Daniel Gooch
• Digital Civics Contact: Dr Daniel Gooch

Next generation multimedia and networking

• Deepfake images detection for forensic purposes Contact: Dr Patrick Wong
• eXplainable Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing for Satellite Deepfake Images Detection Contact: Dr. Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui
• 6G ubiquitous wireless networks Contact:Prof Laurence Dooley
• 3D-imaging paradigms for 6G networks Contact:Prof Laurence Dooley
• Future trends in wireless communications: Exploring new structures of turbo codes Contact: Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• A hardware module for Robust and Resilient UAVs Communications Contact: Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• Game-Theoretic Approaches to Environmental Risk Contact: Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• Developing geographical understanding through 3D immersive environments Contact: Dr David Morse
• Participatory Machine Learning - Rethinking the Power Dynamics Contact: Dr. Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui

Software engineering and design

• Sustainable software engineering Contact: Dr Chris.Douce
• Security by design: Trust, Reliability and Resilience for IoT devices in Healthcare Contact: Dr Chitra Balakrishna
• Cyber security behaviour assessment using serious games concepts, artificial intelligence and human behaviour analytics Contact: Dr Chitra Balakrishna
• Exploring the influence of AI on software engineering practice Contact: Dr Chris.Douce, Dr Irum Rauf
• Participatory Security: Self-protecting Communities On the fly Contact: Dr Amel Bennaceur
• The role of storytelling in software engineering practice Contact: Dr Chris.Douce, Dr Tamara Lopez
• Automating Online to Offline Services using Smart Contracts Contact: Dr Yijun Yu
• Live Forensics for Drones Contact: Dr Yijun Yu
• Business agility in an era of hybrid working Contact: Dr Advait Deshpande
• Responsible Software Engineering: Practices and Tools for the AI Era Contact: Dr Irum Rauf
• Mobilising artificial intelligence to identify patterns of criminal behaviour on digital devices Contact: Dr Ian Kennedy

Technology and education

• Reducing the Skill Barrier for Educator-Driven Development of Immersive Learning Environments Contact: Oli Howson
• A Learning Approach for Adaptive Multi-Modal Augmentative and Alternative Communication Contact: Prof Andrea Zisman
• Education and training for globally distributed virtual teams: preparing the workforce for the future Contact: Dr David Morse
• Teaching programming at a distance Contact: Dr Christopher Douce