PhD Studentship: Bridging Attitudes and Actions: Using Smart Data, Eye-Tracking, and Machine Learning to Understand Non-Sustainable Consumer Behaviour

ESRC DTP Strategic Joint Studentship 

University of Nottingham and University of Birmingham

The Midlands Graduate School is an accredited Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP). One of 15 such partnerships in the UK, the Midlands Graduate School is a collaboration between the Universities of Warwick, Birmingham, Nottingham, Aston Leicester, Loughborough, De Montfort and Nottingham Trent.

We are now inviting applications for an ESRC Strategic Joint Studentship between the N/LAB, Nottingham University Business School (where the student will be registered) and the School of Psychology, Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham to commence in October 2025. 

The UN cites climate-change as the largest threat facing humanity. Its mitigation requires adjustments in behaviours across the whole population. While UK citizens express strong concerns about climate change, social science has yet to identify exactly why those concerns are not translating into behavioural change (e.g., consumption of environmentally-friendly goods). Lack of understanding of this intention-behaviour gap continues to stymie both interventions and informed policy-making due to (i) challenges in measuring real-world behaviours, (ii) absence of an objective measure of pro-environmental purchasing, and (iii) lack of data on exactly when and where the intention-behaviour gap emerges within the consumption journey. 

This exciting PhD Programme will look to address these challenges by employing a novel combination of data-donation, data-enhancement, and data-augmented laboratory experiments. The project will be supported by interdisciplinary supervision team, N/LAB data partners (https://www.nlab.org.uk/), and direct support of a new ESRC-research programme at University of Nottingham, offering accompanying infrastructure and a welcoming, collaborative environment. These uniquely place the studentship to investigate, for the first time, causes of environmentally-unfriendly consumption across the consumer journey - shedding light on intention-behaviour gaps and helping understand when, where, and to whom interventions can best occur to support sustainability. Key questions include:

• How do national patterns of environmental-purchasing behaviours change over time, observed through the lens of loyalty-card data?
• How do attentional drivers, influenced by socio-demographics and “environmental” labels impact consumer choices?
• Can integration of participant’s “digital-footprint data” help improve ecological validity of lab-experiments?
• To what extent can data-donation help shed light on when/where the intention-behaviour gap emerges?

The project will be jointly supervised by Prof James Goulding (University of Nottingham), Dr Arkady Konovalov (University of Birmingham), and Dr Evgeniya Lukinova (University of Nottingham).

Application Process

To be considered for this PhD, please complete the strategic Joint Studentship application form via the above ‘Apply’ button.

Please upload an anonymised CV and cover letter as part of the online application process. Shortlisted applicants will also be required to provide transcripts and two references.

Application deadline: 24^th February 2025 (Interviews will be held in the week starting on 3^rd March 2025)

Midlands Graduate School ESRC DTP

Our ESRC studentships cover fees at the home rate, a maintenance stipend, and extensive support for research training, as well as research activity support grants. Support is available to both home and international applicants. For further details, visit: www.mgsdtp.ac.uk/studentships/eligibility/.

Informal enquiries prior to application can be directed to Dr Evgeniya Lukinova (evgeniya.lukinova@nottingham.ac.uk).

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