Diadromous Fish Interactions with Offshore Wind Developments

Project Description:

This PhD scholarship is offered by the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience, a partnership between the Universities of Durham, Hull, Loughborough and Sheffield. The successful applicant will undertake six-months of training with the rest of the CDT cohort at the University of Hull before continuing their PhD research at Hull, supported by industry partners, the Environment Agency and Cefas.

The project aims to address gaps in knowledge regarding diadromous fish migration pathways and offshore wind (OSW) farms and their associated subsea cables on the British North Sea Coast.

Diadromous fish, such as critically endangered European eel (Anguilla anguilla) and Atlantic salmon (Salmon salar), migrate between oceanic and riverine environments. Both are known to utilising a magnetic map to navigate and are sensitive to electromagnetic signals from anthropogenic sources. However, there are significant gaps in knowledge regarding diadromous fish and their interactions with OSW turbines and subsea cables which emit electromagnetic fields, especially in the North Sea.

This is particularly relevant to the Humber Estuary as a key migration route for European eel and Atlantic salmon, and leader of OSW development along the British North Sea coast. To fill these knowledge gaps, European eel and Atlantic salmon will be acoustic tagged and tracked using arrays of strategically deployed acoustic receivers, including in the vicinity of other anthropogenic pressures, in the Humber Estuary and the East coast of Britain.
Doing so will provide greater understanding of vulnerable and commercially important diadromous fish migration at a large spatial-scale, and thereby facilitate a greater evidence base for effective species protection and future OSW infrastructure management and policy.

Training and development

You will benefit from a taught programme, giving you a broad understanding of the breadth and depth of current and emerging offshore wind sector needs. This begins with an intensive six-month programme at the University of Hull for the new student intake, drawing on the expertise and facilities of all four academic partners. It is supplemented by Continuing Professional Development (CPD), which is embedded throughout your 4-year research scholarship.

The successful candidate will benefit from access to a Safe AI module during the second year.

Entry requirements

If you have received a First-class Honours degree, or a 2:1 Honours degree and a Masters, or a Distinction at Masters level with any undergraduate degree (or the international equivalents) in Bioscience or Environmental Science, we would like to hear from you.

The ideal candidate will have experience in Coding/Programming (R or Python), Animal Telemetry and movement analysis, Fieldwork in aquatic environments, Geographic Information Systems, Statistical Analysis, Oceanographic Modelling, and Data Presentation.

If your first language is not English you will be required to provide evidence of your English language proficiency level that meets the requirements of the Aura CDT’s academic partners. This course requires academic IELTS 7.0 overall, with no less than 6.0 in each skill.

If you have any queries about this project, please contact Dr Jon Bolland, J.Bolland@hull.ac.uk

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

Watch our short video to hear from Aura CDT students, academics and industry partners:

Funding

The Offshore Wind CDT is funded by the EPSRC, allowing us to provide scholarships that cover fees plus a stipend set at the UKRI nationally agreed rates. This is £21,805 per annum at 2026/27 rates and will increase in line with the EPSRC guidelines for the subsequent years (subject to progress).

Eligibility

The advertised CDT scholarships are available to Home (UK) Students only. Research Council funding for postgraduate research has residence requirements. We have reached our quota for international student applications for 2026 entry and so advertised CDT scholarships are only available to Home (UK) Students. To be considered a Home student, and therefore eligible for a full award, a student must have no restrictions on how long they can stay in the UK and have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least 3 years prior to the start of the scholarship (with some further constraint regarding residence for education). For full eligibility information, please refer to the EPSRC website.

How to apply

Applications are now open for September 2026 entry and will be considered on a rolling basis, and we therefore strongly encourage applicants to apply as early as possible. Shortlisted candidates may be invited to interview as applications are received and offers may be made before all applications are reviewed and if a scholarship is filled any future scheduled interviews may need to be cancelled. The scholarships will remain open until all places are filled.

We warmly welcome applications from all eligible candidates, and we particularly encourage applications from women, mature students, disabled applicants, and marginalised Black and Asian students with home‑fee status, who remain under‑represented in our cohorts.

If you need additional time to prepare your application due to disability, caring responsibilities, health‑related needs, or other circumstances linked to protected characteristics, you may submit a short Expression of Interest Form (EOI) to register your intention to apply. You will have 7 days from the date you submit your EOI to complete and submit your full application. This ensures you are not disadvantaged in our rolling process. An EOI does not provide priority over completed applications, and places may still be filled at any time.

Please ensure that you familiarise yourself with the Aura CDT website before you apply to give you a good understanding of what a CDT is, our CDT’s research focus and the training and continuing professional development programme that runs alongside the CDT. The Frequently asked questions page and Candidate resources page are essential reading prior to applying.

Applications to this project are made via the University of Hull admissions system. If you have not applied to the University of Hull before, you will need to set up an account to enable you to track the progress of your application and upload supporting documents.

As part of the recruitment process, we ask that you submit a short film of you delivering a presentation, of up to 5 minutes in length, on “How do your experiences and qualities provide a background to contribute to research and innovation for the project you have applied for”.

You will be assessed on the content of your presentation, not your film editing skills, but please be mindful of filming in an appropriate, quiet location. Please film the presentation in whatever way you feel most comfortable with. For example, it could be a slide presentation with voice over, or you may wish to present simply talking to the camera.  Please use the tools and technology that are accessible to you and that you feel comfortable with e.g. your mobile phone, or the built-in ‘Record Slide Show’ on Keynote (macOS, iOS, iPadOS) or Powerpoint etc.

We also ask that you complete a Supplementary Application Form. This includes space for you to provide a link where the shortlisting panel may view your film.

Follow the relevant link to apply for this CDT project at the University of Hull:

Apply for a Full-time place (4-year programme)

With your application, you need to upload copies of the following supporting evidence:

• Complete transcripts (and final degree certificate(s) where possible). If your qualification documents are not in English, you will need to supply copies of your original language documents as well as their official translation into English.
• Your Curriculum Vitae (CV).
• A completed Supplementary Application Form (upload when asked to add a Research proposal – you do not need to add a Research Proposal).

Uploading the form 

When you have completed the form, please save it as a pdf format and labelled as follows:

Last name_first name PhD application form

Upload the form as part of your application documents through the University of Hull student application portal, when asked to add a Research Proposal. The Form replaces the Research Proposal and so you do not need to add a Research Proposal. Please do not send your form directly to the Offshore Wind CDT.

Guaranteed Interview Scheme

The CDT is committed to generating a diverse and inclusive training programme and is looking to attract applicants from all backgrounds. We offer a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for home fee status candidates who identify as Black or Black mixed or Asian or Asian mixed if they meet the programme entry requirements. This positive action is to support recruitment of these under-represented ethnic groups to our programme and is an opt in process.

Find out more

Interviews

The first-round interview panel for shortlisted candidates will comprise the project supervisory team members from the host university where the project is based, plus a representative of the CDT.  Where the project involves external supervisors from university partners or industry sponsors then representatives from these partners may form part of the interview panel and your application documents will be shared with them (with the guaranteed interview scheme section of the supplementary application form removed).

If you are successful, you will progress to a second interview. This will be with key academics from the CDT from across our four partner institutions (Durham University, University of Hull, Loughborough University, University of Sheffield) and your application documents will be shared with them (with the guaranteed interview scheme section removed from the supplementary application form).

If you have any queries about this project, please contact Dr Jon Bolland, J.Bolland@hull.ac.uk

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.