Primary supervisor: Dr Ben Clunie

Co supervisors: Professor Tom Pope & Dr Joe Roberts

Expected Start date and location

October 2026 onwards, based at Harper Adams University, Edgmond, Shropshire, UK.

Funding

The studentship covers the current Home Student (UK, Isle of Man & Channel Isles) tuition fees plus a yearly stipend. For 2026/7 this equates to £21,805 per year, with potential increases each academic year.

International applicants would need to be able to fund the difference between home and overseas fees with a proportion being paid in full before Visa documentation can be issued.

Applicants

PhD applicants must hold a minimum of an upper second class (2:1) honours degree, or equivalent in a relevant discipline or a 2.2 alongside a relevant Master's degree with Merit, or potential for research based on alternative qualifications/experience judged acceptable by the university.

Required degree level: Minimum 2:1 undergraduate degree or equivalent in entomology, zoology, ecology, biology, animal science, agricultural science, molecular biology, or a related discipline.

Additional skills required: Experience or interest in entomology, pollinator health, animal behaviour, ecology, pest management, molecular biology, or applied biological sciences. Prior experience, or willingness, to work with honeybee colonies in field and laboratory settings. Ability to collect and analyse quantitative data. Desirable skills include experience with insect handling, microbiology, RT-qPCR, chemical ecology, GC-MS, or statistical analysis

Alternate entry pathway explanation: Applicants with a relevant master’s degree and/or substantial research or industry experience in apiculture, entomology, ecology or pest management are also encouraged to apply.

Project 

Honeybees, Apis mellifera, are essential agricultural pollinators, but colony health remains under severe pressure from the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor, a major driver of colony losses through direct parasitism and transmission of deformed wing virus (DWV). Existing control options rely heavily on a limited range of acaricides, and their long-term effectiveness is increasingly threatened by resistance. This PhD will develop integrated approaches to Varroa management by combining chemical ecology-led monitoring, biological control and established biotechnical methods to improve colony health and pollination-relevant outcomes.

The project will investigate whether hive volatile organic compound (VOC) profiles shift with Varroa infestation intensity and whether these changes can be used as a semi-automated early monitoring system. It will also test whether biotechnical interventions timed to colony phenology, combined with semiochemical-baited delivery of entomopathogenic fungi

(EPF), can improve control efficacy. A further objective is to determine how EPF infection affects DWV transmission dynamics and honeybee behavioural defences such as grooming and colony hygiene, and whether integrated approaches deliver measurable colony-level benefits beyond simple mite reduction.

Methodologically, the PhD will combine smart-hive monitoring, hive headspace VOC sampling, GC-MS analysis, laboratory bioassays, behavioural assays, molecular analysis of viral load, and replicated field trials. In Year 1, the student will establish standardised colony health monitoring across the Harper Adams apiary and profile VOCs from colonies spanning a range of Varroa infestation levels. Candidate chemical biomarkers and smart-hive indicators will be analysed using multivariate approaches to assess their diagnostic value.

In Years 1 and 2, laboratory studies will screen candidate EPF isolates for acaricidal activity, thermotolerance and honeybee safety. The student will examine whether fungal infection alters mite feeding and DWV vectoring capacity and whether direct EPF exposure triggers enhanced honeybee defensive behaviours. Semiochemical-baited delivery systems will also be developed to test whether Varroa-attractant compounds can improve mite contact with biological control agents under hive conditions.

In Years 2 and 3, replicated field trials will compare integrated interventions against conventional calendar-based acaricide treatment, evaluating mite dynamics, DWV prevalence, brood recovery, foraging activity, colony growth, honey yield and overwintering survival. The project is expected to generate publishable outputs in chemical ecology, invertebrate pathology and pest management, while also delivering practical and policy-relevant evidence for sustainable Varroa management and integrated pollinator management.

Closing Date: 12 May 2026

Department: Academic Staff & Research Degree Studentships

Primary supervisor: Dr Holly Vickery

Co supervisors: Dr Nicky van Veggel & Dr Ellen Williams

Expected Start date and location

October 2026 onwards, based at Harper Adams University, Edgmond, Shropshire, UK.

Funding

The studentship covers the current Home Student (UK, Isle of Man & Channel Isles) tuition fees plus a yearly stipend. For 2026/7 this equates to £21,805 per year, with potential increases each academic year.

International applicants would need to be able to fund the difference between home and overseas fees with a proportion being paid in full before Visa documentation can be issued.

Applicants

PhD applicants must hold a minimum of an upper second class (2:1) honours degree, or equivalent in a relevant discipline or a 2.2 alongside a relevant Master's degree with Merit, or potential for research based on alternative qualifications/experience judged acceptable by the university.

Project 

Farm animals are widely used in agricultural and veterinary education to develop students’ practical skills, confidence and professional competence. However, despite the prevalence of this practice across schools, colleges and universities, there is currently very limited empirical evidence on how educational use affects animal welfare.

Educational settings present a unique context for farm animals. Animals may be handled repeatedly by inexperienced or unfamiliar students, exposed to variable handling quality, and involved in frequent teaching activities. At the same time, educators and institutions face increasing expectations to demonstrate ethical, welfare-focused animal use, driven by professional standards and evolving regulatory frameworks, including requirements from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. There is a clear need for robust, evidence-based guidance to support high-quality education while safeguarding animal wellbeing.

This PhD will address this gap by combining animal welfare science with social science approaches to deliver practical, implementable solutions. The overarching aim is to quantify and characterise the welfare impacts of farm animal use in education, and to develop evidence-based guidelines that balance animal welfare with effective student learning.

The project has four key objectives:

1. Characterise how farm animals are currently used in UK educational settings, in order to identify perceived welfare impacts, constraints, and opportunities for refinement.

2. Quantify welfare impacts of educational activities on farm animals using behavioural, health, and production‑linked indicators, accounting for species‑specific responses and individual variability.

3. Develop, pilot, and evaluate practical refinements to educational practice that reduce negative welfare impacts while maintaining or enhancing educational value.

4. Produce evidence-based best practice training resources and guidelines for the monitoring and management of farm animal welfare in educational settings.

The successful candidate will receive interdisciplinary training in animal welfare assessment, qualitative and quantitative research methods, and stakeholder engagement. The project is based at Harper Adams University, within a supportive and collaborative research environment with strong links to educational institutions and sector stakeholders.

This PhD will produce high-quality publications and applied outputs with real-world impact, including guidance that can be adopted across educational establishments to improve the welfare of large numbers of animals. It offers an excellent opportunity for a motivated candidate interested in animal welfare, human–animal interactions and applied research with direct policy and practice relevance.

Closing Date: 12 May 2026

Department: Academic Staff & Research Degree Studentships

Primary supervisor: Dr Matthew Hill

Co supervisors: Dr Heather Campbell, Professor Carl Sayer (UCL), Dr Simon Segar

Expected Start date and location

October 2026 onwards, based at Harper Adams University, Edgmond, Shropshire, UK.

Funding

The studentship covers the current Home Student (UK, Isle of Man & Channel Isles) tuition fees plus a yearly stipend. For 2026/7 this equates to £21,805 per year, with potential increases each academic year.

International applicants would need to be able to fund the difference between home and overseas fees with a proportion being paid in full before Visa documentation can be issued.

Applicants

PhD applicants must hold a minimum of an upper second class (2:1) honours degree, or equivalent in a relevant discipline or a 2.2 alongside a relevant Master's degree with Merit, or potential for research based on alternative qualifications/experience judged acceptable by the university.

Project 

Pond ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots and have been widely demonstrated to support a greater aquatic biodiversity than rivers, streams and lakes at a landscape scale, driven by the wide environmental gradients recorded across a pond network. Their importance to biodiversity becomes particularly important in agricultural regions, where ponds provide important ‘habitat islands’ for an array of aquatic and terrestrial taxa. However, agricultural intensification has accelerated the loss of pond habitats, with those that remain in agricultural landscapes often becoming terrestrialised due to neglect. As a result, significant declines in pond biodiversity across UK agricultural landscapes have been reported.

In recent years there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of agricultural ponds for biodiversity, and a need to create new ponds or restore existing ponds to reverse decades of pond infilling and neglect. The UK has been at the forefront of research that has

driven a significant advancement of our understanding of best practice for pond creation and restoration, with recent studies demonstrating that both methods can be highly effective in supporting aquatic macroinvertebrates and plants. Despite increasing literature and interest in pond creation and restoration (hereby collectively referred to as pond management), there remains a lack of fundamental understanding of many aspects of pond management. For example, pond management typically focusses on creating or restoring individual ponds, with limited consideration for the wider pond network within agricultural landscapes. In particular, there is no clear understanding of the potential spillover effects from pond restoration and the importance of late succession, shaded ponds in the landscape.

This PhD project will address several critical knowledge gaps to increase the effectiveness and biodiversity benefit of pond management across agricultural landscapes.

The overarching aim of the PhD is to advance fundamental understanding of the effects of agricultural pond management (creation and restoration) on aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity at larger landscape scales, to inform future practice and policy. This will be achieved through the following objectives:

1. At a landscape scale, quantify the aquatic biodiversity spillover effects from pond management.

2. Quantify the aquatic macroinvertebrate diversity within heavily shaded unmanaged ponds.

3. Determine the impact of pond management on terrestrial invertebrate (e.g., ground beetle) diversity at local and landscape scales.

4. Establish comprehensive pond management guidance to maximise biodiversity at a landscape scale.

Methods

Secondary macrophyte and macroinvertebrate data of agricultural ponds where pond management has been undertaken across the UK will be collated to examine the wider landscape scale contribution of pond management. Alongside this, primary data from a UK agricultural (e.g., Shropshire/Norfolk) landscape will be collected to examine the relationship between local environmental factors, connectivity, pond management and biodiversity (macrophyte and macroinvertebrate) gains across the agricultural landscape. To quantify the contribution of late succession shaded ponds to biodiversity intensive surveying of shaded ponds will be undertaken to quantify the invertebrate communities present in these ponds. Significant scrub and tree removal in the riparian zone of ponds is undertaken during pond restoration, yet we do not know the effect of this on many terrestrial fauna. Ground beetle and spider diversity will be collected before and after pond management at 10 pond sites. It is anticipated that the results of this PhD project will facilitate the establishment of comprehensive pond management guidance at a local and landscape scale, that will help maximise aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity across agricultural landscapes.

Closing Date: 12 May 2026

Department: Academic Staff & Research Degree Studentships

Primary supervisor: Dr Nwabueze Emekwuru

Co supervisors: Professor Fernando Auat Chein, Dr Simon Woods

Expected Start date and location

October 2026 onwards, based at Harper Adams University, Edgmond, Shropshire, UK.

Funding

The studentship covers the current Home Student (UK, Isle of Man & Channel Isles) tuition fees plus a yearly stipend. For 2026/7 this equates to £21,805 per year, with potential increases each academic year.

International applicants would need to be able to fund the difference between home and overseas fees with a proportion being paid in full before Visa documentation can be issued.

Applicants

PhD applicants must hold a minimum of an upper second class (2:1) honours degree, or equivalent in a relevant discipline or a 2.2 alongside a relevant Master's degree with Merit, or potential for research based on alternative qualifications/experience judged acceptable by the university.

Project educational requirement: A first-class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in Agricultural Engineering, Biosystems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, or a related discipline

Essential: 

• Strong analytical and quantitative skills. 

• Excellent written and spoken English communication skills. 

Desirable: 

• Knowledge of fluid dynamics, especially experimental methods in atomisation and sprays. 

• Programming experience (e.g. Python, MATLAB or similar). 

• Experience with data analysis, machine learning or geospatial datasets. 

• Experience with UAVs, precision agriculture or remote sensing. 

• Experience with writing for publications.

Project 

Autonomous arable farming has advanced significantly through the Hands-Free Hectare and Hands-Free Farm initiatives, demonstrating that crops can be established, managed and harvested without in-field human operators. These systems integrate GNSS-guided machinery, remote sensing and data-driven decision-making to deliver commercially viable yields. However, crop protection remains largely

dependent on conventional ground-based spraying, limiting operational flexibility and environmental optimisation.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used globally for pesticide applications, enabling highly targeted interventions, reduced operator exposure, and significantly lower pesticide use. Despite this, there is limited understanding of UAV spray behaviour under temperate UK very-low volume and ultra-low volume formulations operating conditions and no fully integrated framework linking UAV-based sensing, decision-making and variable-rate aerial application within autonomous farming systems.

This research studentship will address the challenge of integrated UAV-based variable-rate spraying system for autonomous arable production. The project combines hyperspectral sensing, machine learning, and spray physics solutions to the emerging area of precise, data-driven crop protection.

The research will have access to in-house and external partner spray labs, the Hands-Free Farm, a soil hall and the UK government agency governing UAV sprays.

Closing Date: 12 May 2026

Department: Academic Staff & Research Degree Studentships

Primary supervisor: Dr Sven Peets

Co supervisors: Professor Fernando Auat Chein, Dr Simon Woods

Expected Start date and location

October 2026 onwards, based at Harper Adams University, Edgmond, Shropshire, UK.

Funding

The studentship covers the current Home Student (UK, Isle of Man & Channel Isles) tuition fees plus a yearly stipend. For 2026/7 this equates to £21,805 per year, with potential increases each academic year.

International applicants would need to be able to fund the difference between home and overseas fees with a proportion being paid in full before Visa documentation can be issued.

Applicants

PhD applicants must hold a minimum of an upper second class (2:1) honours degree, or equivalent in a relevant discipline or a 2.2 alongside a relevant Master's degree with Merit, or potential for research based on alternative qualifications/experience judged acceptable by the university.

Project educational requirement: A first-class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in Robotics; Mechatronics; Agricultural Engineering; Mechanical Engineering; Electrical/Electronic Engineering; Computer Science; Control Engineering, or a related discipline

Desirable: 

• Programming in Python or C++ 

• Experience with robotic systems (ROS, sensors, manipulators, or mobile robots)

• Familiarity with computer vision or perception systems

• Interest in autonomous systems and agricultural technology

• Experience with experimental design and data analysis

Project 

UK horticulture is facing an unprecedented convergence of challenges: persistent labour shortages, rapidly rising production costs, and mounting environmental and regulatory pressures. High-value fruit crops remain especially vulnerable. Unlike arable systems, these crops rely on delicate, skilled manual handling within dense and variable canopies – tasks that current mechanised systems cannot reliably perform. As a result, the sector faces increasing risk within national food supply chains and limited capacity for sustainable growth.

At the same time, the UK has demonstrated global leadership in autonomous agriculture through initiatives such as the Hands Free Hectare and Hands Free Farm projects, which proved that fully autonomous field operations are achievable. However, translating this success into horticulture requires a new generation of robotic systems capable of interacting with crops in ways that respect biological fragility, uneven terrain, and human-centred crop architectures. A critical barrier remains: there is currently no validated scientific framework that defines safe, reliable and efficient robot-crop interaction in real horticultural environments.

This PhD project will address that fundamental gap. The researcher will develop a robust, evidence-based framework governing how robotic systems approach, assess and harvest horticultural crops. Working with advanced robotic platforms available at Harper Adams University, the project combines robotic engineering, biological crop analysis, and autonomous systems research to tackle one of the most significant technological challenges in modern agriculture.

The project has four major components:

1. Interaction Mapping

The student will decompose the fruit-harvesting task into measurable stages – from navigating within orchard rows, to fruit detection and ripeness assessment, to stable manipulation during reaching and detachment. Biological and mechanical indicators such as fruit damage, branch disturbance and stability margins will be quantified to understand how robotic systems interact with crop environments.

2. Digital Twin Development

A spatially accurate digital twin of orchard conditions will be created to simulate crop variability, predict interaction forces and evaluate system stability and safety under differing terrain and canopy scenarios. This will generate a replicable methodology for reducing real-world deployment risk and improving commercial and regulatory confidence in autonomous agricultural systems.

3. Field Validation

Through controlled orchard trials, the project will quantify harvesting success rates, crop damage, operational reliability, system efficiency and safe human-robot interaction margins. Statistical evaluation will characterise performance robustness under genuine environmental variability.

4. Deployment and Impact Pathway

Findings will be synthesised into a validated robot-crop interaction framework, including deployment guidelines for growers, technology developers and regulators. The resulting

evidence base will form a crucial step toward scalable, commercially viable autonomous horticulture.

Significance

This project offers an exceptional opportunity for a researcher interested in robotics, autonomous systems or precision agriculture to contribute to the next major breakthrough in agri-technology. Its outcomes will support the ongoing impact narrative of the Hands Free Farm initiative and contribute directly to national priorities surrounding food security, labour resilience and sustainable intensification.

The successful candidate will produce high-impact scientific outputs and help shape the UK’s pathway toward fully autonomous horticultural production systems.

Closing Date: 12 May 2026

Department: Academic Staff & Research Degree Studentships

Primary supervisor: Prof. Fernando Auat Cheein

Co supervisors: TBC

Expected Start date and location

October 2026 onwards, based at Harper Adams University, Edgmond, Shropshire, UK.

Funding

The studentship covers the current Home Student (UK, Isle of Man & Channel Isles) tuition fees plus a yearly stipend. For 2025/6 this equates to £20, 780 per year, with potential increases each academic year in line with UKRI. 

International applicants would need to be able to fund the difference between home and overseas fees (£11, 382 for the 2025/6 academic year) with a proportion being paid in full before Visa documentation can be issued. Please note that due to time frame for Visa applications the start date may have to be amended to January 2026.

Applicants

Applicants must hold a minimum of an upper second class (2:1) honours degree, or equivalent in a relevant discipline or a 2.2 alongside a relevant Master's degree with Merit, or potential for research based on alternative qualifications/experience judged acceptable by the university.

Project 

We are seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate to join our research team working at the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence, and agriculture. The project will focus on the development and application of robotic systems with articulated arms for fruit handling, harvesting, and other farming operations. 

The successful candidate will investigate the integration of vision systems and AI techniques for perception, decision-making, and control, enabling robots to operate reliably in complex agricultural environments. The research will involve design, experimentation, and validation of robotic approaches tailored to real-world farming needs. 

Closing Date: 03 Jun 2026

Department: Academic Staff & Research Degree Studentships