EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Sustainable Sound Futures

Duration of PhD: 3+1 years (FT)

Funding available

Students are fully funded for four years (tuition fees, stipend and bench fees). We welcome applications from home students and have a small number of places for international students.

Fully funded PhD studentship available for September 2025.

Do you want to reduce the harms caused by noise and poor acoustics and forge a more positive sounding future? Our CDT is an unprecedented collaboration for Acoustic doctoral training across the Universities of Salford, Bristol, Sheffield and Southampton and over 50 project partners from industry and the public sector.

Loud noise causes hearing loss. Moderate levels of noise create chronic stress, annoyance, sleep disturbance and heart disease. Noisy, reverberant rooms harm learning in schools. Noise also harms animals and decreases biodiversity. But a sustainable sound future is also about engineering better sounds, from improving hearing aids, through to enhancing music events to boost well-being.

Your research will help our project partners make a better sounding future in one of these themes:

1. New sources of sound and vibration arising from decarbonisation and electrification to achieve net-zero.
2. Understanding how human and other animals perceive sound. This needs to be at the heart of our engineering decisions.
3. Machine Learning for signal processing, computer simulation, measurement, design optimisation and modelling of listener response.
4. Positive uses of sound from improving well-being to sound sensing for infrastructures.

This means we are looking for PhD candidates across a broad range of subjects, including: aeroacoustics, environmental noise, psychoacoustics, soundscape, structureborne sound, bioacoustics, architectural and building acoustics, vibroacoustics, materials, measurement, acoustic sensing and computer modelling. It also means we welcome applicants who have studied many different first degrees or masters, such as acoustics, physics, maths, mechanical engineering, experimental psychology, ecology, material science, environmental geography and computer science

What makes our CDT a unique and exciting opportunity, is the extensive bespoke training that goes far beyond what is normally available for standard PhDs in Acoustics. The training will be co-created between academics and our partners, to ensure you have the skills, knowledge and understanding to build a career creating a more sustainable sound future. You will also have access to the best acoustic facilities in the country.

You will be based in one of the four universities (Salford, Sheffield, Bristol, Southampton). But all students will be brought together online and face-to-face for training. This will create a cohort of doctoral students who can support each other and learn about the breadth of acoustics. The training will develop your technical skills for work in sound and vibration (simulation, measurement, machine learning, psychoacoustics, etc.) and key skills for research (project planning, entrepreneurship, public engagement etc.). Placements at project partners will help you learn about how to create impact from your research.

We will provide an inclusive, inspiring and supportive environment, where every student, supervisor and partner feel that they matter and belong. We will be pro-active to ensure that doctoral candidates, regardless of background, enjoy similar experiences and we will work to remove barriers to participation. There are a number of widening participation enhanced stipends available.

Employment prospects for our graduates will be extremely good, as there is a chronic shortage of skilled people in this area.

More details and how to apply

Our website soundfutures.salford.ac.uk provides the project lists for autumn 2025 and the qualifications you require to apply.