PhD Studentship in History or Geography

Duration: 4 years, full-time

Start date: Sept 2025

The DCU School of History and Geography is a research-active school in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. We are offering a doctoral scholarship in either history or geography, and invite applicants who wish to undertake PhD research in the following areas:

History

We wish to particularly encourage applicants interested in: Medieval Ireland (12th-16th century), especially social history, the history of Irish towns and cities, legal history and women’s and gender history.

Other areas of expertise in the School include:

• Early modern and modern Ireland
  • Aspects of Irish history in the later early modern period, c.1660-1850
  • Aspects of Irish women's lives in the period 1850-1985
  • The Irish Revolution and post Civil War Ireland
  • Partition and its consequences
  • History of religion, in particular all aspects of Irish Catholicism
  • Aspects of labour and legal history
  • The history of science, medicine and technology
  • The history of children, childhood and youth
  • The history of crime and punishment
  • The history of Dublin
  • Poverty and efforts at its amelioration
• Early modern Italy (c. 15th-18thc)
  • History of religion
  • Gender and sexuality
  • Social history
  • History of crime
  • Comparative and/or transnational projects are welcome

Geography

Areas of expertise in the School include:

• Historical geography including
  • Geography of Irish crime and punishment
  • Landlord landscapes of town and country (18th to 20th c.)
  • Housing and suburbanisation in Ireland (late 19th c. to present)
• Infrastructural labour
• Urban governance of sustainability and/or just transitions
• Waste geographies
• Freshwater and drinking water quality
• Rewilding as a nature-based solution to address Ireland's climate and socio-
  environmental challenges.
• Societal and/or policy impacts of citizen science monitoring of freshwater quality
• Coasts and climate change
• Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services
• Environmental Systems Modelling
  • Health, wellbeing and climate change 
  • Climate change policy and governance

Applications in research areas not listed above may also be considered, provided the applicant has identified a suitable research supervisor from among the members of the staff. Applications made without the agreement of a potential supervisor will not be considered. Please direct any queries to Dr Juliana Adelman (juliana.adelman@dcu.ie).

The successful candidate will be offered a scholarship that covers all tuition fees (EU or non-EU) and provide an annual stipend for living expenses of €25,000 pa for up to 4 years subject to satisfactory annual progression.

For further information, including the application form, please see www.dcu.ie/historygeography/phd-scholarship-opportunities

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