Plastics Innovation and Curation PhD Studentships (x3 posts)

Our Research

Our flourishing research and scholarship culture celebrates and enables original investigation; extending knowledge fields and developing new understanding within the arts. 

Plastics Innovation and Curation PhD Studentships

Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) is pleased to offer three PhD Studentships within its new Plastics Innovation and Curation Research Centre (PlastIC), funded by a UKRI Expanding Excellence grant to commence in October 2025 (or earlier, if needed). The Centre will explore how plastics degrade over time and behave in different environments, working closely with the museum and heritage sector and with manufacturing industry.

The Centre is uniquely located in a specialist arts university that combines the expertise of AUB’s Museum of Design in Plastics (MoDiP) with the design, manufacturing and testing capabilities of AUB’s Innovation Studio all based on the university campus.

We'd be interested in proposals from PhD candidates for pursing their research in the areas below (but not limited to):

• The development of material identification and conservation processes of plastic works of art, in collaboration with MoDiP.
• The exploration of plastics additive manufacturing materials and their properties in the context of art, design and heritage.
• The use of plastics in commercial applications with a particular focus on properties, performance, ageing and sustainability. 

Context

Understanding how plastics materials degrade over time and in different environments will inform their future use and manufacture. Heritage collections offer a time-bank of such materials, both historic and contemporary, museums and institutions are increasingly faced with the challenge of preserving and caring for them. Likewise, industry is faced with an ever-changing landscape of materials and manufacturing processes. For example, the durability and longevity of materials produced via additive manufacturing remains a critical challenge for designers. Understanding the mechanical properties and failure modes due to environmental ageing of these materials is essential for their appropriate adoption in commercial applications. 

The PhD projects will contribute to the PlastIC Research Centre and may involve material composition assessment, testing, and/or developing collection care and curation protocols. They may also add to knowledge of the use of plastics within commercial applications. 

Successful candidates will have a degree of freedom in developing their individual research project while also contributing to the projects undertaken by the research centre. This will be conducted within the newly created PlastIC laboratory equipped for non-destructive analysis techniques to assess the performance of materials. It also has weathering equipment to test and assess the stability of materials under different conditions. 

Successful candidates will have a background in the fields of materials, design, engineering science, heritage science, conservation science or history as appropriate to their proposal.