Every year, our Faculty funds Ph.D. positions- and we would love to help secure Ph.D. funding for those that want to work with us!
The central thrust of our team's current work is the ethical and governance challenges raised by emergent technologies, and evolving military innovation doctrines- with a particular emphasis on concerns about militarization and weapon proliferation. Our work has focused on developing a critical research programme directed at anticipating and engaging with fears about the hostile use of biotechnology. Increasingly, this had involved examining national-level approaches to military innovation and non-proliferation.
Dr. Brett Edwards is looking to supervise a project which focuses on the development of new methodologies that can help civil society and the government keep pace with military involvement in advanced biotechnology. This project will focus primarily on the analysis of open-source literature- including scientific publications and expert reports. The aim is to develop improved strategies for producing country and field-specific investment profiles. The work will be interdisciplinary and will feed into policymaking processes (including domestic UK and international level policy through forums such as the Biological Weapons Convention).
The applied and policy impact-driven nature of this work means that candidates with a wide range of specialisms of potential relevance are encouraged to apply.
This work is potentially suitable for two competitive funding streams in our faculty- which are open for application: https://www.bath.ac.uk/publications/faculty-of-humanities-social-sciences-phd-research-opportunities/
Potential applicants who would like support from Dr Edwards in submitting a proposal on this topic to these schemes are strongly advised to get in touch with him directly.