The Media School at Bournemouth University is pleased to offer five fully funded PhD studentships, of which one may be offered to an overseas candidate.
Candidates must demonstrate outstanding qualities and be motivated to complete a PhD in 3 years. Candidates should hold a good first degree (first or upper-second class) and/or a Masters degree in an appropriate discipline. An IELTS (Academic) score of 6.5 minimum is essential for candidates for whom English is not their first language.
In addition to basic entry criteria, the School will look closely at the qualities, skills and background of each candidate and what they can bring to their chosen research project.
Research in the Media School is organised around our research centres, each of which comprises both teaching staff and research students. You can use the links in the second list below to go to centre websites in order to view details of the ways in which each centre is currently developing its work, and the projects for which studentship applicants are invited to outline their research ideas. Alternatively, you can click on the project names in the first list below to go direct to details of individual projects.
You will see that we have a total of 14 projects to which studentships may be attached, but are awarding only 5 studentships. Selection of candidates will, therefore, be a very competitive process. You are strongly encouraged to make phone or email contact with research supervisors to discuss you research interests with them.
Centre for Computer Animation Research at the National Centre for Computer Animation
Information on how to apply for studentships
Please include the MS code and title of the project you are applying for in all correspondence with the School Research Administrator.
The successful student will be a practicing artist, who will pursue critical visual research in the area of creative 3D computer animation leading to a portfolio of original productions that embody the findings of the research… more >> (PDF - 37KB)
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Project Title
Modelling and Animation using Implicit Complexes
Supervisory Team
Prof. Peter Comninos, Prof. Alexander Pasko and Dr. Valery Adzhiev.
This project involves the research, design and development of a generic Computer Animation production system prototype which will drastically simplify the way computer animators think about, design and produce computer animation sequences involving the interaction of ethereal, soft and hard objects. more >> (PDF - 37KB)
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Project Title
Computer Games Related Research
Supervisory Team
Prof. Peter Comninos, Dr. Valery Adzhiev and Dr. Oleg Fryazinov
This project involves the research, design and implementation of aspects of a generic Computer Games development system prototype which will make the production of a computer game as relatively painless as existing Computer Animation development systems make the production of a computer animated sequence .… more >> (PDF - 30.4KB)
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Project Title
Computer Animation-Technical and Visual Arts Research
The Computer Animation Research Centre (CARC) is the research arm of the National Centre for Computer Animation, which was rated 5 in the last Research Assessment Exercise. The CARC’s aim is to encourage and foster research and innovation in the fundamental principles and applications of Computer Animation techniques. The Philosophy of the Centre is to encourage the interaction and collaboration between art and science. Our two main research strands are technical research on computer graphics and practice based visual art research.… more >> (PDF - 31.1KB)
The development of realistic virtual human animation is essential for the future of computer animation. In the past few years, we have made several efforts to improve existing approaches, resulting in the production of novel techniques and quality publications.
In this project, we will take our current achievements a step further. We aim to empower the animator by giving them an overall control of the process while reducing the amount of unnecessary labour-intensive operation.… more >> (PDF - 30.1KB)
Although surface modeling has attracted a lot of research attention, most objects are best described by their volume. Solid modelling is an important topic of geometric modelling and computer graphics. In this project we will investigate new techniques which will combine the strengths of geometry- and physics-based approaches. The objects will therefore have both spatial ‘awareness’ and physical ‘properties’. Such modelling techniques have a wide range of applications in computer graphics.… more >> (PDF - 30KB)
The centre is now offering a studentship (with the possibility of a second) for a PhD student to conduct research which utilises the LBC/IRN archive. The archive contains substantial amounts of news and current affairs material together with documentary, arts and phone-in programming. The collections relating to major news ‘events’ (e.g. the Falklands War, miners’ strike, IRA campaign, terrorist attacks) are particularly significant… more >> (PDF - 37KB)
Traditionally, media practice education has stressed the need for face to face classroom-based teaching in which students can work in groups to conceive, develop and make production projects. This research will examine the impact of new technologies upon this model of teaching. It will consider how distributed learners can collaborate over time and distance in debate and discussion and on shared production projects to improve the quality of their learning. The project aims to find out how, why and where e-learning is used in media practice education and to determine users’ views of its value and potential.… more >> (PDF - 28.6KB)
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Project Title
Assessment: Identifying and assessing creativity and innovation.
A problem for all involved in media practice education, and for those working in the creative industries, is the difficulty of identifying, nurturing and assessing creativity. It applies at the point of recruitment, whether to a production-based degree programme or to a creative industry team, and it is a difficulty for those involved in assessment of creative and innovative artefacts. This research will seek to provide information about the nature of creativity, to identify key indicators of creativity, to examine current methods of assessing creativity, and to propose new models.. more >> (PDF - 28.6KB)
The Corporate and Marketing Communications Academic Group already has a number of active academic researchers, and we are now seeking to extend our existing consumer research expertise through the recruitment of exceptional PhD students. As a group we are interested in qualitative research into hidden aspects of modern consumption… more >> (PDF - 29.7KB)
The Corporate and Marketing Communications Academic Group already has a number of active academic researchers, and we are now seeking to extend our existing consumer research expertise through the recruitment of exceptional PhD students. As a group we are interested in qualitative research into hidden aspects of modern consumption… more >> (PDF - 29.7KB)
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Project Title
Corporate Social Responsibility – reputation builder or cynicism multiplier?
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept of wide, and apparently, growing significance in the contemporary political economy. Indeed the UK Conservative Party, long associated with the business interest, declares that it will judge British enterprise, inter alia, by that yardstick. But concept is invariably judged on its application: does business (and increasingly public and voluntary sector bodies) ‘do’ it for principled or instrumental reasons?... more >> (PDF - 30.7KB)
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Project Title
New directions in the measurement and evaluation on public relations programmes
The measurement and evaluation of public relations programmes has long been atop the research agenda for public relations (McElreath & Blamphin 1994, White & Blamphin 1994, Synnott & McKie 1997) and there is continuing demand for applied research in this field (Gregory & Watson 2007 forthcoming), although the essential methodology has been in place for many years... more >> (PDF - 30.4KB)
Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, refers to emerging media as ‘media that's available when and where you want it with content moving freely between different devices and platforms…we need to think cross-platform, across TV, radio and web for audiences at home and on the move’ (‘Creative Future’, April 2006). The future of media is in innovative, flexible, repurposeable, 360 degree content. We are interested in supporting practice-based research projects that explore cross-platform media production and reflect creatively on the possible futures of media delivery... more >> (PDF - 30.2KB)
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Project Title
Networked Practices: Changing methodologies for interactive experience
The centre aims to explore and challenge notions of the consumer, the author, the user of interactive media and to diminish the perceived divide between the theory, production and experience of these forms.... more >> (PDF - 30KB)
Centred around practice as an act through which theory is not only interrogated, but is also formed, the research will involve a documented and self-reflexive approach that takes account of the general aims. The practitioner will need to be conversant in current and contemporary theoretical issues alongside a critical position as argued through their practice... more >> (PDF - 30.4KB)
