Reimagining just and low-carbon immersive futures

This studentship is based in the College of Arts, Technology and Environment.

Immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality – and more recently, generative AI - are transforming creative and cultural industries worldwide. Yet these technologies are deeply entangled with extractive economies, carbon-intensive digital infrastructures, and systems of power that disproportionately affect lands, cultures and communities in the Global South.

As the immersive sector continues to grow, it is characterised by resource-heavy hardware, energy-intensive software and digital infrastructures, and rapid, high-waste cycles of obsolescence. Whilst research into the ways in which immersive technologies can support pro-environmental behaviours or enhance awareness of the climate and nature crisis, there is a need for timely and impactful doctoral research to reimagine how immersive technology practice, production and distribution methods, and supply chains can contribute to decarbonisation and environmental justice. Further, this PhD offers ways for the cultural sector to collectively build capacity to grapple with the complex realities of what it means to be alive at a time of potential, societal, ecological and climate collapse.

This PhD will critically explore what a just, low-carbon, and pluralistic immersive ecosystem could look like in practice. In the first instance, critically examining how immersive technologies and their global supply chains are implicated in processes of resource extraction, high energy consumption, and digital colonialism, and the political tensions that uphold the status quo. Secondly, drawing on examples from the cultural and technology sectors, it will investigate how immersive productions, practitioners, cultural organisations or policymakers can help create and sustain pathways towards low-carbon, regenerative and post-extractive ways of working that actively restore, rather than deplete, cultural and ecological systems.

As the lead UK institution behind national sector development for Immersive Arts, and a partner in a UK network for sustainable digital research infrastructure, UWE Bristol is uniquely positioned to support doctoral research in this field. Depending on a candidate’s chosen area of interest, the successful candidate will have opportunities to connect their research to a dynamic network of cultural partners, technologists, creative practitioners and policymakers, ensuring real-world impact and knowledge exchange across the rapidly evolving immersive sector.

Candidates are invited to develop their own research question(s) and UWE Bristol will build a supervisory team in response to the interests of the successful candidate. 
The successful candidate will be based in the Digital Cultures Research Centre, hosted within the Pervasive Media Studios, Watershed, on UWE Bristol’s City Campus. The successful candidate will benefit from a range of support services that the university offers to our Doctoral Researchers, including professional skills and career development support.

We are particularly interested in practice-led research, and would be interested in both traditional, research-based PhD proposals, and proposals that involve developing a standalone, creative body of work, that might iteratively adopt low carbon and just practices.

We invite proposals for PhD study from home (UK) and international students.

For more information about this studentship please contact Professor Verity McIntosh at verity.mcintosh@uwe.ac.uk.

The studentship is available from 1 October 2026 for a period of three years, subject to satisfactory progress and includes a tax-exempt stipend, which is currently £20,780 (2025/26) per annum.

In addition, full-time tuition fees will be covered for up to three years (Home).

Please submit your application online. When prompted use the reference number 2627-OCT-CATE06. 

Application deadline

The closing date for applications is 22 May 2026.

Apply now

Supporting documentation

You will need to upload your research proposal, all your degree certificates and transcripts and a recognised English language qualification is required.

You will need to provide details of two referees as part of your application.

Interview dates

It is expected that interviews will take place on weeks commencing June. If you have not heard from us by July, we thank you for your application but on this occasion you have not been successful.