Join our Graduate School of the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (GSNOCS). We're an interdisciplinary research community working on the latest topics in ocean and earth science.
GSNOCS is a centre of excellence. We are large, international, scientifically diverse and genuinely interdisciplinary with over 120 registered PhD supervisors and more than 150 PhD students with backgrounds in:
Find out more about the:
One-to-one contact with practising researchers is the most important component of postgraduate education. We host a large cohort of academic staff at NOCS involved in supervising our PhD students. There are many hundreds more working in related disciplines across the University.
A supervisory team will mentor and guide you in carrying out your research. An advisory panel will monitor your progress and give additional advice.
Our research generally focuses on one of these areas:
You can either apply for a structured studentship or propose your own PhD idea.
Structured studentships are advertised PhD projects with a title, supervisor, remit and funding already in place. These projects are set up through collaborations with industry, external partners or through one of several centres for doctoral training that we take part in.
Taking one of our structured studentships will give you access to additional training, conferences and secondments.
The INSPIRE Doctoral Training Partnership offers fully-funded studentships. You can explore these here or visit the INSPIRE website to explore projects for September 2024 entry into the 6th round of INSPIRE recruitment.
Underneath the shallow Arctic shelves relict subsea permafrost contains a large pool of carbon including methane. The project will investigate future subsea permafrost degradation, the associated methane release and other concurrent changes in the marine environment.
The Mediterranean Sea is a climate change hotspot, implicated in the dramatic warming and drying of regional climate. This project will link changes in surface Mediterranean waters to increasingly extreme weather, to shifts in the character and flows of underlying salty waters, and to far-reaching influences on the North Atlantic.
This project directly addresses the impact of climate change on food security. It will investigate how wheat plants respond to high temperature and drought using lines with altered levels of regulators of these responses. Results will be used to help develop wheat varieties that are more resilient to climate change.
At some rifted margins, mantle rocks are exhumed both from beneath the continent and through tectonic extension at the mid-ocean ridge, then hydrated and intruded by melt. This project aims to quantify the evolution of mantle hydration and melting during breakup at such margins, using a new seismic dataset.
The project will develop, optimize, and validate a rapid eDNA-based approach for marine and coastal biodiversity assessment, covering the full range of biodiversity from microbes to mammals. The project will be based around the Plymouth Sound National Marine Park and the Western English Channel, encompassing a range of habitats.
Recent proliferation of sargassum across the tropical Atlantic brings both management challenges and commercial potential to the eastern Caribbean, demanding accurate forecasts day-months ahead of beaching events. Building on open ocean forecasts, Earth Observation capabilities and recent morphological insights, machine learning will underpin a new ocean-to-coast process-based sargassum forecast system.
Sand dollars are flattened, disc-shaped sea urchins that live in high-energy coastal environments across the globe. Why they evolved this atypical morphology remains a mystery. This project aims to uncover how environmental pressures shaped the sand dollar body plan using cutting-edge 3D morphometrics, computational techniques from engineering and evolutionary modeling.
The aim of this project is to assess the role of climate variability in driving Antarctic Ice Sheet changes and its contribution to sea level rise by combing new observations of ice, ocean and atmosphere.
This project will develop and validate new field-based systems for assessing the presence, behaviour and environmental cycling of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) – environmentally persistent “forever chemicals”. Novel passive PFAS samplers will be developed and deployed to examine PFAS accumulation and risk in varied aquatic environments in Europe and beyond.
Tides are one of the most persistent forces on our planet. There is increasing evidence that there have been significant changes in tides over the last 150 years. This PhD will be to undertake an ambitious, integrated and ground-breaking assessment of future changes in tides on global and local scales.
Marine sediments contain massive amounts of ‘blue carbon’ isolated from the atmosphere for millennia. Net carbon flux into sediments and the influence of human activity and changing climate is poorly quantified. You will investigate factors influencing the accumulation, loss and fate of carbon in sediments to inform marine management strategies.
Using the latest climate models and novel spatial analyses, this PhD will investigate the biogeographic and ecological characteristics of pelagic bioregions in the Southern Ocean. Projecting these bioregions under future climate storylines will identify ecological risks, climate winners and losers, and provide outputs that can guide climate-smart ecosystem management.
The diamondback moth (DBM) is a global specialist pest of Brassica crops. Caterpillar feeding shows daily rhythmicity controlled both by environmental light and circadian clocks. This project will identify how DBM herbivory is jointly determined by environmental factors as well as molecular responses in both pest and plant.
This project will compare communities of small ‘cryptobenthic’ fishes (camouflaged fishes, <5cm long) across latitudinal gradients, from temperate to tropical reef ecosystems. You will learn field techniques alongside morphological, molecular and isotope analyses to assess the functions of these tiny fishes in food webs across diverse and economically important ecosystems.
Future hazards from sea ice keels pose a threat to planned subsea cables routes in the Arctic and Antarctica. This project will use high-resolution ocean and subsea models and observations to understand and assess this threat. It will deliver a risk-assessment model demonstrator for trials by industry stakeholders.
This project explores the impact of nutrient deposition on long-term carbon storage in Holocene/Anthropocene peatlands by comparing near-pristine localities in Newfoundland with impacted counterparts in Wales. The approach will be interdisciplinary, integrating documentary archives with palaeoecological analyses (including ancientDNA) and peat geochemistry to create high-quality evidence for peatland conservation.
Quantify the frequency and volumes of sediment delivered to deep-sea basins from high-to-low latitudes along the Eastern Atlantic and determine underpinning controls. Quantify the organic carbon sequestered in turbidites in deep-sea basins to establish geological fluxes of carbon from hinterland to abyssal plains, and whether there is a long-term climate influence.
Seafloor sediment characterisation is fundamental for assessing geohazards to planning and monitoring offshore renewables sites. They are generally inaccessible and expensive to characterise. This project is aimed to link key geotechnical and geophysical characteristics of sediments to enhance the use of remote geophysics with little need for ground truthing.
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is the largest pool of reduced carbon in the ocean, sequestering 2 Pg C/yr of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This project uses in situ physical and chemical observations to investigate how overturning processes in the Nordic Seas inject vast amounts of DOC into the deep ocean.
The Cenozoic (66-0 Ma) is characterised by a shift from a warm, ‘greenhouse’ climate to a cold, ‘icehouse’ climate. However, the mechanisms responsible remain poorly understood. This project will combine organic geochemistry and Earth system modelling to assess the importance of organic carbon burial in modulating climate during the Cenozoic.
This project will use annually laminated (varved) lake sediments to reconstruct Holocene sub-decadal summer temperature and carbon cycling. These records can evaluate: (a) different driver-response mechanisms at different timescales; (b) new temperature (including seasonal bias) and carbon cycling proxies; (c) whether past warmer periods enhanced carbon cycling in lakes.
The project aims to use and combine the latest techniques in seismology, structural geology, and remote sensing to understand how geological faults behave in space and time during continental extension, and how faulting interacts with the flow of fluids such as CO2 and H2O. The research will target magma-rich (East Africa) and magma-poor (Corinth rift) end member types of settings.
Echinoderms are key ecosystem engineers in many marine ecosystems from deep ocean depths to shallow intertidal habitats. This project will analyse their extensive fossil record to study how their resilience to climate change and mass extinction events has changed through time; using the past to test predictions of future change.
Have all ancient reef-builders influenced biodiversity as coral reefs do today? Coral reefs are the primary ecosystem engineers in our oceans today, but their capacity to maintain environments is threated by climate change. Using the fossil record, we can study the (in)consistency of climate change impacts on reef-building ecosystem engineers.
Microplastics in oceans are detrimental to marine biota and may also impact Earth’s biogeochemical cycles. However, their effects on microorganisms and microbial communities are poorly studied. This project will focus on the effect of on the microbial production and consumption of methane, an important greenhouse gas, in sediments.
Natural selection requires mass mortality, which is rare in modern human societies (few deaths from predation, starvation, warfare, disease). Relaxation of selection (weaker purifying selection) must be compromising the human genome, although difficult to study directly. This project will advance understanding by investigating how relaxed selection degrades calcification in coccolithophores.
This project will use optical imaging of the aurora together with radar observations of the ionosphere to investigate extreme heating of the neutral upper atmosphere caused by auroral processes. The understanding gained will benefit atmospheric modelling for climate predications and could improve predictions of drag on spacecraft and space debris.
The properties of upper oceanic crust are controlled by exchanges of heat and chemicals between the ocean and the Earth’s interior. This project will study their temporal variation in a corridor in the eastern Pacific with unprecedented detail to understand the entire life cycle of an oceanic plate.
We lack an understanding of the causes and constraints underlying the outcomes of hybridisation, and therefore have limited ability to predict how species redistribution due to climate change will negatively affect native species. This project will help fill this gap with important consequences for understanding biodiversity and conservation planning.
This project aims to determine the role aging ocean crust has played in setting seawater chemistry and buffering atmospheric CO2 over Earth’s history. This will be accomplished by combining geochemistry and geochronology to evaluate the nature, timing and duration of hydrothermal inputs from the mid-ocean ridge flanks to the oceans.
Towards the journey for Net Zero, there is a pressing need to revolutionise the monitoring of greenhouse gas pollutants throughout the oceans. Modern gas sensors are bulky and power hungry, limiting their use—this project will develop unique and tiny Silicon Photonic sensor chips for widespread oceanic greenhouse gas monitoring.
To explore and quantify production of the coldest waters encircling Antarctica. Antarctica’s cold and dense waters go on to fill the deepest 40% of the ocean, but lack adequate observation. This project aims to address fundamental questions about the variability and downstream change of Antarctic waters.
Ocean biogeochemical models form an important component of the Earth System Models used to make climate projections. However, they represent a present-day ecosystem, not a future one. This project will improve climate projections by investigating approaches to allow the biogeochemical model to respond to climate driven shifts in the ecosystem.
Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) is a water mass with global distribution, storing carbon and heat away from the atmosphere. Yet, there is no consensus on how this water mass is renewed by surface processes and how it is influenced by, and feedbacks on, climate change. This project will investigate how AAIW is formed and how it is changing.
This project aims to address the challenge of predicting land-sea exchanges of material in Arctic shelf seas. Employing numerical and semi-analytical models, we’ll reveal how vertical mixing impacts property and movement of the Arctic's shelf waters. Results will provide valuable insights for refining mixing parameterizations to improve climate predictions.
The frequency, intensity, and extent of extreme climatic events are expected to increase but their impact on forest ecosystem functioning, and adaptive capacity is less understood. This project aims to address this using historical field and satellite data and using machine learning algorithms to understand the vulnerability and resilience of European forests to extreme climatic events.
UK coastal habitats such as seagrasses or tidal marshes provide critical ecosystem services for human well-being and biodiversity. This project will be carried out in collaboration with Natural England to quantify the multiple impacts of climate change, human activities, and biological interactions on these habitats to support their protection, sustainable management, and restoration.
This project will use a multidisciplinary approach combining ecological surveying, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis, and network analysis, to capture the impacts of loss of nutrition, including quality and quantity of nectar and pollen nutrients, on wild pollinator trophic, competitive, and parasitic interactions, in fragmented and agriculturally dominated landscapes.
A natural tidal inlet (Pagham Harbour) and managed realignment site (Medmerry) have exhibited significant annual morphological change, making site management challenging. Using historical data, data analysis and modelling, the research will investigate the two sites and seek to explain what causes the observed phases of delta and spit formation.
Recent groundbreaking research has unveiled that plants emit sounds in response to various stressors and environmental changes, but the preliminary study lacked precision and control. We aim to use ISVR's advanced acoustic facilities for a meticulous investigation of plant noise, including responses to damage, pests, and environmental improvements.
Oceanic calcium carbonate production by microscopic marine organisms (foraminifera) is one of the most important long-term sinks of carbon on Earth’s surface. This project will determine the sensitivity of these organisms to ongoing climate change and ocean acidification and constrain whether their response will contribute to future CO2 emissions.
Long-term environmental monitoring of impacts to the seabed is rare but important, particularly as climate change accelerates. Seabed photography makes it possible, but inconsistency in application reduces comparability This project will assess climate-related ecological change in benthic fauna, and develop consistency in seabed photography key to future marine monitoring.
Macroecological understanding of the factors regulating abyssal biodiversity underpins crucial work to preserve Earth’s largest biome from growing human impacts. This project will apply novel approaches in numerical community ecology to gain integrative understanding of how biotic and abiotic factors shape abyssal seabed communities at different spatial scales.
Investigating interactions between the ocean’s biological carbon pump, flux of particles, microplastic contaminants and associated microbial growth – studying the transfer of contaminants to depth. Using ancillary in-situ sensors and samplers, remote sensing, and modelling to resolve spatio-temporal variation in magnitude and composition of particle flux related to different environmental factors.
Investigating abundance, sources and fate of plastic contamination in the Southern Ocean.
Monitoring our oceans and detecting geohazards are more important than ever, and existing seafloor fibre-optic cables may provide a global network of low-cost and green sensors with proper calibration. This project aims to calibrate cable data with standard acoustic measurements, analyse the recorded ocean soundscapes, and develop ocean monitoring techniques.
As ice melts in the warming Arctic Ocean, primary productivity increases, drawing down atmospheric CO2: a process thought to be limited by nitrogen supply. Few data exist, however, on nutrient limitation and stress in the Arctic. This project will explore how Arctic change impacts the activities of carbon fixing microorganisms.
The loss of oxygen from seawater (ocean deoxygenation) is one of the key threats to marine ecosystems as Earth heats up in response to human activity. We will use the geological past to study past global warming events and their links to ocean deoxygenation (oceanic anoxic events) and marine extinction
Marine phytoplankton are key players in the global carbon cycle, responsible for half of Earth’s primary production. This project will use underwater robots to evaluate small-scale physical processes in the upper ocean, its effects on phytoplankton growth and assess the importance of including these processes in oceanic carbon models.
This project will use observations from satellites, autonomous sensors and floats, combined with climate model outputs, to investigate how physical and biological processes (and the resulting carbon dioxide uptake) respond to changing sea ice conditions in the Southern Ocean (SO), the most important region globally for ocean anthropogenic-carbon uptake.
Polar amplification¾where enhanced warming in polar regions outpaces global temperature change¾is poorly understood. Using geological evidence, numerical climate models and theory, this project will explore why polar amplification sometimes affects the Arctic, sometimes the Antarctic and sometimes both poles. Crucial projections of polar amplification for future climate change will be made.
This project will determine present-day habitats of oceanic pelagic sharks from modelling satellite-tracked animal space-use and environmental data. Future predictions of shark habitat suitability will then be made using Earth System Models and climate projection datasets to provide new understanding of how climate change will alter distributions of threatened species.
The principal aim is to understand how enhanced melting of the Antarctic ice sheet affects global ocean circulation, sea level and climate. Proxy records of glacial discharge for past high sea-levels will be used with model simulations to resolve the processes and impacts of greater freshwater-flux to the Southern Ocean.
The widespread reorganisation of ecological communities associated with anthropogenic activity, within the context of climate change, heighten concerns about the likely consequences for ecosystems. By combining extant data sets with laboratory and field observations, this studentship will determine the effects of multiple stressors, alone and in combination, on marine benthic ecosystems.
The project aims to design a controller for collaborative task division among autonomous platforms surveying seafloor areas. Building on existing collective decision-making strategies in robot swarms, the project uses Machine Learning (e.g., multi-agent reinforcement algorithms) to enable a heterogeneous set of underwater vehicles (AUVs and Drifters) to map unknown areas.
Sea-ice melting impact ecosystems. Satellite methods cannot accurately measure sea-ice thickness due to assumptions of snow cover and freeboard. This project will develop green technologies for ice thickness measurements. This project will involve novel laboratory geophysical measurements of ice and development of low power acoustic source for autonomous underwater vehicles.
Soil biophysical interactions play a critical role in facilitating water flow and retention, aeration, and nutrient transport, which aid in maintaining habitats for soil biota. Climate change and land misuse act to impede biological activity. We investigate the environmental resilience by understanding fundamentals of these biogeochemical interactions in their environments.
The availability of iron and silicon are key drivers of productivity and carbon drawdown in the Southern Ocean. Although sedimentary supply is known to be important, we need to better understand how particle size and stabilisation will affect how these biogeochemical cycles will change in the future.
This project will answer the question: do the impacts of solar storms depend on previous space weather activity? Decades of data from powerful, advanced radars will be used to study how our space environment responds at different temporal and spatial scales to space weather storms.
Climate change may lead to tipping points where ecosystems shift to alternative states (i.e. grassland to desert). New theory suggests that tipping points may not be uniform but display distinctive spatial patterns. In this project, you will test if such patterns occur for vegetation globally, using new spatio-temporal global datasets.
Numerous seabird and marine mammal species occur in the subtropical and subantarctic zones of the southern Indian Ocean. This project aims to model and identify the species- and community-level distribution of these charismatic animals to reveal ecosystem processes and patterns in the region and support spatial conservation and management initiatives.
Suspending lives in extreme environment is fascinating. Indeed it is a conserved response that occurs in anoxia, a no-oxygen condition, in many organisms. This project will use model organisms including yeast and worms to elucidate the molecular mechanisms in sensing oxygen, arresting the cell cycle and recovering from anoxia through an interdisciplinary approach.
Antarctic ice sheet mass loss is primarily driven by warm waters crossing the shelf break. This project will determine whether fast warming around Antarctica that leads to the rapid loss of the ice sheets, is caused mainly by local or remote drivers and at which timescales each driver acts.
Anthropogenic climate change has no analogue but, in the last 60 million years, the hyperthermals of the early Cenozoic come the closest. Here you will develop a new analytical tool for the boron isotope analysis of single planktic foraminifera to revolutionise our understanding of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) and other hyperthermals.
Antarctic sea ice – which has experienced a major decline since 2016 – has recently been proposed to play an important role in shaping the structure and circulation of the global ocean. This project will investigate this role on time scales of seasons to centuries, and assess implications for contemporary climate change.
Ocean currents around Greenland regulate Greenland Ice Sheet melting and the consequent injection of meltwater into the North Atlantic. This project will assess what controls these currents and how they mediate interactions between the North Atlantic and the Greenland Ice Sheet, helping predict future sea level rise and ocean circulation.
Ecosystems are widely impacted by anthropogenic activities, including the release of chemicals. Scyphozoan jellyfish, in particular the common jellyfish Aurelia spp., are widespread in coastal environments subjected to a range of natural and anthropogenic stressors. Their complex life history consisting of an annual medusa and perennial polyp make them a valuable model organism to gain a mechanistic understanding of the effects of anthropogenic inputs on distinct life stages of a widely-distributed bentho-pelagic invertebrate.
Working in collaboration with Vesta, this project will investigate the fate of bio-limiting and/or toxic trace metals that may be released during olivine dissolution in coastal environments, improving our understanding of potential environmental and ecosystem impacts associated with ocean alkalinity enhancement as a form of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal.
The long-term fate of carbon sequestered by the natural biological pump and by proposed marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) schemes is a major knowledge gap. This model-based project will examine how ocean carbon storage may respond to climate change and to evaluate the efficiency of different mCDR approaches.
The Earth’s magnetosphere-ionosphere (M-I) system is driven by its interaction with the solar wind through a coupling process called “reconnection”. You will use machine learning techniques to probe an extensive dataset of ionospheric dynamics in order to elucidate how the solar wind conditions control the size/rate of the coupling process.
The aim is to resolve gene expression of individual cells in marine samples by a new sequencing approach. This information can help us understand how microbes turn over nutrients, mutually interact, and adapt their physiology to environmental change such as coastal water pollution and climate change.
Energy production is highly dependent on water, either as hydropower or via cooling of thermoelectric generators, and therefore vulnerable during droughts and heatwaves. This project seeks to understand the current and future global impacts of climate change on energy production and the environment, and implications for meeting emissions policy targets.
You will work on exciting sediment archives recovered during a recent major international scientific research expedition to the North Atlantic. This project will shed new light on fundamental shifts in Earth’s past climate as well as develop new understanding on the dynamics, causes and consequences of Earth’s magnetic field changes.
You can either apply for a structured PhD or propose your own research project idea.
Taking a structured PhD will give you access to additional training, conferences and secondments.
We offer our structured studentships in partnership with Inspire Natural and Environmental Research Council (NERC) and the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership (SCDTP).
We offer a wide range of fully-funded studentships. We run most of our PhD studentships in partnership with doctoral training centres, meaning you’ll benefit from enhanced training and guaranteed funding.
These studentships:
Find out about the Inspire doctoral training partnership offering fully-funded studentships.
The University of Southampton supports (in conjunction with other funders) additional fully-funded studentships.
These are associated with some projects carried out in collaboration with a non-academic partner. Students get a top-up to their research training support grant (RTSG) of £1,000 or £2,000 a year.
GSNOCS has a limited number of international student scholarships, available for highly qualified non-UK/EU applicants to help cover the cost of student fees.
You must identify the project(s) you're interested in, and we recommend you contact the relevant supervisors before you apply.
Get in touch with the GSNOCS office team at gsnocs@soton.ac.uk
Once you've found a supervisor, they can help you with potential funding sources. We offer match funding in some cases.
You'll need to state how you intend to pay for your tuition fees when you submit your application.
Find out more about funding your PhD
You can borrow up to £26,445 for a PhD starting in 2022. Doctoral loans are not means tested and you can decide how much you want to borrow.
Find out about PhD loans on GOV.UK
You may be able to win funding from one or more charities to help fund your PhD.
2022 to 2023 entry:
| PhD | UK | International |
|---|---|---|
| Full time | £4,596 | £24,600 |
| Part time | £2,298 | £12,300 |
2023 to 2024 entry:
| PhD | UK | International |
|---|---|---|
| Full time | tbc | £25,500 |
| Part time | tbc | £12,750 |
2024 to 2025 entry:
| PhD | UK | International |
|---|---|---|
| Full time | tbc Spring 2024 | £26,100 |
| Part time | tbc Spring 2024 | £13,050 |
You're eligible for a 10% alumni discount on a self-funded PhD if you're a current student of graduate from the University of Southampton.
It's a good idea to contact a relevant supervisor about the project or research you're interested in, before you apply.
Decide whether to apply to an advertised research project or create your own proposal.
It's a good idea to email potential supervisors to discuss the specifics of your project. It's best to do this well ahead of the application deadline.
You’ll find supervisors’ contact details listed with the advertised project, or you can search for supervisors in the staff directory.
You’ll need to send us:
You’ll need to have a 2:1 undergraduate honours degree, or equivalent qualification, in an appropriate subject.
If English is not your first language, you'll need an IELTS minimum level of 6.5 with a 6.0 in writing, reading, speaking and listening.
Your awarded certificate needs to be dated within the last 2 years.
If you need further English language tuition before starting your degree, you can apply for one of our pre-sessional English language courses.
Check the specific entry requirements listed on the project you’re interested in before you apply.
Research degrees have a minimum and maximum duration, known as the candidature. Your candidature ends when you submit your thesis.
Most candidatures are longer than the minimum period.
| Degree type | Duration |
| Ocean and Earth science PhD full time | 2 to 4 years |
| Ocean and Earth science PhD part time | 3 to 7 years |
