ESRC DTC PhD Collaborative Studentship - University of Warwick, Sociology Department (in collaboration with National Marine Aquarium)

Doctoral Studentship in the Social Sciences

The ESRC Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Warwick is now inviting applications for an ESRC Doctoral Collaborative Studentship involving Warwick’s Department of Sociology in partnership with the National Marine Aquarium (in Plymouth), starting from October 2014. Applications are invited from Home and EU students for this studentship, which can cover both fees and maintenance. Non-UK students may only be eligible for the fees element of the studentship. Eligibility details are available here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/esrcdtc/studywithus/eligibility/(http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/esrcdtc/studywithus/eligibility/eligibility_guidance_from_esrc.pdf)

Project Summary: This studentship is focused on a specific topic. The project seeks to evaluate the impacts of public engagement experiences in aquariums on visiting publics. Human behaviour and unsustainable consumption patterns are playing a significant role in escalating both climate change and biodiversity loss. The UK is committed to substantial reductions in greenhouse emissions by 2020. However, improved technologies and government intervention alone cannot fully overcome the problem of unsustainable Western lifestyles and behaviours. There is clearly a need for broad public involvement to turn the tide of unsustainable consumption patterns. Indeed, persuading and enabling UK citizens to change their behaviour in ways that are inconvenient, expensive or unfamiliar requires the full-scale engagement of citizens as well as social and cultural institutions to yield fundamental change. The scale of social change requires the maximisation of pro-conservation impacts by any institutions willing to contribute. Prior empirical research conducted by the supervisor indicates that UK zoos may have the potential to achieve such public engagement aims. Yet robust generalisable research is needed to understand whether this potential can realised in aquariums too. Such research needs to assess how this impact can be enhanced for the benefit of marine life and humanity alike. The proposed project would extend the leading edge of current social scientific knowledge by investigating the impacts of a key UK aquarium’s (National Marine Aquarium) public engagement activities on public conservation-related attitudes, ideas and behaviour.

The research will be supervised by Dr. Eric Jensen (Department of Sociology, University of Warwick) and Paul Cox, (Director of Conservation and Communication, National Marine Aquarium).