Funded PhD opportunities

The studentships provide: fees and stipend at UKRI standard rates for home students; individual training and development activity for the student; cohort-based training and development; additional stipend for a placement or collaborative activity; access to the Centre’s resource for workshops, conferences, placements, and summer schools. Overseas applicants are eligible to apply and a limited contribution to international fee rates may be available. Our PhD students will join a lively and supportive research environment with an emphasis on mentoring, career development, and the ambitious pursuit of cutting-edge research questions.

The extraordinarily rapid rise of algorithmic technologies is witnessing a seismic shift in how the lives of humans are complexly interwoven with novel machine paradigms of knowledge and action. Across many spheres of life – from decisions on welfare or immigration to judgements about healthcare – the futures of people and societies are becoming intimately connected to the patterns and attributes that algorithms have learned from data. The Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life will transform how we understand and study the relationship between human life and machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. Algorithmic life involves an emerging cultural, social, and technological way of knowing and engaging with the world, a paradigm whose form and consequences are not yet well understood. Two overarching fundamental questions underpin the Centre’s research: What are the novel paradigms of knowledge, perception, and action that emerge with contemporary algorithmic technologies? How do ideas and concepts of what it means to be human transform and adapt in collaboration with the different life-worlds of algorithms?

In the Centre’s first doctoral cohort, each PhD student will work on 1 of our 4 thematic programmes: generativity; image and language; synthetic worlds; and being human. We welcome PhD applications and proposals to these broad themes, and we are particularly eager to hear from applicants with ambitions to develop their disciplinary expertise and research interests through interdisciplinary collaboration across the social sciences, humanities, and sciences. For example, you might be a computer scientist working on machine learning and with interests in how the concept of inference is changing both technically and socially; or you may be a sociologist whose work on algorithmic social systems opens up philosophical questions of ethics; or you may be a humanities student who is driven to study how the nature of human language is changing with machine learning technologies. These interdisciplinary PhD studentships offer exciting opportunities to study as part of a larger scholarly community in The Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, whilst providing excellent opportunities for to develop your career through specialist training, and engagement with our partners in academia, industry, and the charitable and arts sectors. You will be supervised by an experienced team of academics drawn from our expertise across disciplines. The duration of study (3.5 or 4 years) will be dependent on the necessary training period required for the PhD project and on any periods on placement or collaborative work.

The key difference between the 4 Leverhulme Centre PhD studentships and the 3 AHRC focal award studentships is that our 4 Leverhulme CAL PhDs may have any combination of disciplinary foci within the broad thematic programmes of Generativity, Image and Language, Synthetic Worlds, and Being Human. Our 3 AHRC focal awards are ring-fenced for lead supervision in the disciplines of the arts and humanities, with co-supervision in social sciences or sciences. AHRC themes are strongly represented in the Centre’s thematic programmes. AHRC focal studentships are fully integrated into the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life and have equal access to training and resources with the Centre’s cohort. For 2026 entry, applicants may apply with an AHRC student-led or a collaborative doctoral partnership aligned to 1 of our 4 thematic programmes: generativity; image and language; synthetic worlds; and being human. Indicative areas of student-led proposals, and agreed 2026 collaborative partnerships are as follows:

• Generativity – though ‘generative AI’ is becoming ubiquitous, the meaning of generativity has had a narrow technical focus on large language models. Student-led PhD proposals may, for instance, focus on the historical, philosophical or cultural meanings of the concept of generativity, or the relationship between creative practice and the generative. Proposals may ask, for example, how is creativity differently configured through machine learning technologies? Can human practices of writing, designing, or choreographing afford new perspectives on how AI technologies generate outputs? Student-led projects within this theme will have opportunities for placements with a range of national and international organisations for art, literature, theatre, and performance.
• Image and language – arts and humanities disciplines – from archaeology, classics, and literature to modern languages and cultural studies – are fundamental to understanding the rapid transformation of image and language in the age of AI. Indicative PhD topics for student-led proposals include historical studies of technological transformations of ways of seeing and imaging; language questions spanning from translation and meaning to how large language models create different forms of meaning; philosophies of AI and machine vision. Within the image and language theme, 1 collaborative doctoral partnership award is available with the Imperial War Museum, London. The focus of this studentship is on ‘AI and the sounds of the war archive: exploring the ethical potential of machine learning’. The collaborative doctoral project will be co-supervised by the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life at Durham University and Dr Gael Dundas, Director of Collections Management at the IWM, London. The project will be co-designed by the student, the Leverhulme Centre, and the IWM.
• Synthetic worlds – today’s AI is not only synthesising in new ways – such as via digital twins or synthetic datasets – it is also a contemporary phase of a much longer historical process of synthesis. The humanities have led the way in how to understand what simulation and simulated environments do to human experience. Student-led PhD topics within this theme will develop, for example, humanities insights on synthetic environments for an AI age (e.g. nineteenth century literature and synthetic modernities; the figure of the ’twin’ in history and its digital twin counterpart). Within the synthetic worlds theme, 1 collaborative doctoral partnership award is available with fintech neo-bank, Atom Bank. The broad focus of this studentship is on ‘Fintech futures: exploring social investment and diversity in the contemporary history of fintech’. The collaborative doctoral project will be co-supervised by the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life at Durham University and Dr Edward Twiddy, co-founder of Atom Bank. The project will be co-designed by the student, the Leverhulme Centre, and Atom Bank.
• Being human – algorithms are changing what it means to be human and to have relationships with other humans and machines. The being human theme advances our understanding of human life in an age of algorithms. Student-led PhD topics within this theme may include: human understanding and machine mediation; philosophies and ethics of human decision; histories of machine learning. Student-led PhDs within this theme will have opportunities for placements with a range of national and international organisations for art, literature, theatre and performance, and digital services.

A globally outstanding centre of postgraduate research excellence, a warm and friendly place to study, a unique and historic setting – Durham is a university like no other.

As one of the UK’s leading universities, Durham is an incredible place to study for a PhD. The University is located within a beautiful historic city, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and surrounded by stunning countryside. Our talented scholars and researchers from around the world are tackling global issues and making a difference to people’s lives.

We believe that inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham enables Durham people to do outstanding things in the world. Being a part of Durham is about more than just the success of the University, it’s also about contributing to the success of the city, county and community.

Our research postgraduates are a major part of our community. We want our University to be a place where people can be free to be themselves, no matter what their identity or background. Together, we celebrate difference, value one another and are each responsible for creating an inclusive community that is respectful and fair for all.

For more information about the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, please see our website at https://leverhulmecal.webspace.durham.ac.uk/ Enquiries may be sent to the leadership team of the Centre at [email protected].

Please note that the studentship application deadline is 4pm on 26 February 2026.

Applicants are required to submit by email attachments to [email protected]

• A summary CV (2 pages of A4)
• Degree transcript(s).

• A short cover letter (500 words) which details your academic background and experience and explains why you wish to study for a PhD at the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life. If you have already contacted, applied to, or been accepted on a PhD programme at one of the Durham departments, please specify this in your letter and provide the prospective supervisor’s name and your application number. Note that it is not mandatory for you to have already identified potential supervisors or departments as Centre staff will liaise with you and advise on the University PhD admissions process.
• A PhD proposal (maximum 2000 words) detailing the theory, concepts, and methods of your proposed doctoral research and explaining how your research will contribute to 1 of the 4 thematic programmes of the Centre: generativity; image and language; synthetic worlds; and being human. Though you may briefly indicate contributions to more than 1 thematic programme, please focus on detailing 1 primary thematic programme. Note that if you wish your application to be considered for one of the collaborative doctoral partnerships you should devote c.500 words of your total 2000 to outlining how your approach to the theme would be suitable for the specific partner organisation (i.e. Imperial War Museum or Atom Bank).

Are overseas applicants eligible to apply for the studentships?

• Yes, overseas applicants are eligible to apply for the studentships. If successful, they will be eligible for home fees and the standard UKRI stipend. Overseas applicants will be responsible for the shortfall ‘fee gap’ between home and international fees.

Is there any possibility of funding provision to cover the fee gap?

• The possibility of funding provision to cover the fee gap will need to be discussed on a case-by-case basis if an international candidate is selected for a studentship. There is a possibility that some or all of the fee gap could be covered in exceptional circumstances, but this would require specific justifications to be made and for approval by the institution and funder which is by no means guaranteed at this stage. The Centre will make every effort to secure funds to cover the fee gap if possible, and we encourage the strongest candidates including international students to apply, but we do have to be clear that we cannot guarantee whether it will be possible to source funds to cover the fee gap for all international applicants.

I have already applied for/been offered a place on a PhD at Durham University. Can I apply for an LCAL studentship?

• Yes! If you have already applied for/been offered a place on a PhD at Durham Univeristy in a topic area that is a strong match to an LCAL thematic programme than you are very welcome to apply for an LCAL studentship. We would strongly encourage you to work with your prospective supervisor to prepare your studentship application.