SoTA Project Proposals
See below for a list of potential project proposals that would be overseen by academics in the School of The Arts.
If you have any queries or are interested in one of these proposed projects, please contact the Faculty PGR Team at hsspgr@liverpool.ac.uk in the first instance. Click here to visit the School of the Arts postgraduate research information pages.
Architecture
Shaping public space for sustainable social ecology
A potential project could examine the process of shaping a particular type of public space within a specific context. This might include analysing the design and planning process, the involvement of multiple stakeholders in decision-making, and how communities participate in these efforts. The study could also explore how different approaches and processes influence social cohesion, sense of place, and belonging. Such an impact on social ecology may focus on gender equality, the inclusion of minority groups, migrants, and diverse age groups, e.g. the elderly, children and young people. We are especially interested in contexts within developing countries and cultures that are underrepresented in the literature.
Urban Form and Social Space research cluster
Digital HerAItage: Utilising Machine Learning, AR, and VR Technologies to Visualise Lost Architectural Heritage
The project could explore the intersection of cutting-edge technology and architectural preservation. The research would focus on developing innovative methods to digitally reconstruct and visualise architectural heritage that has been lost to time, war, or natural decay. By utilising machine learning, the study could train models to analyse historical data, such as blueprints, archival photographs or textual descriptions, to predict and digitally recreate lost buildings with high accuracy. 3D/4D AI, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) would then be employed to create immersive experiences, allowing users to explore these reconstructions in 3D space. The proposal could investigate technical challenges (e.g., data scarcity, model precision), ethical considerations (e.g., authenticity in representation), and societal impacts (e.g., education, tourism). This interdisciplinary project would contribute to digital humanities, computer science, and heritage conservation, offering a novel framework for preserving and experiencing the past.
AI-Assisted Fabrication: Form Generation from 2D/3D AI Tools and Pathways for Fabrication and Materialisation
The project could investigate how artificial intelligence can transform conceptual design into tangible objects. The research would focus on leveraging AI-driven tools to generate complex forms from 2D sketches or 3D models, using machine learning to interpret and extrapolate design intent, material constraints, and structural integrity. The study would then develop pathways to translate these digital forms into physical prototypes, integrating AI with robotic fabrication processes like 3D printing or milling. Key objectives might include enhancing generative design algorithms, optimizing fabrication workflows, and exploring materialisation strategies that balance aesthetics, functionality, and sustainability. The proposal could address challenges (e.g., data translation, robotic precision), applications (e.g., architecture, product design), and implications (e.g., democratizing design-to-production). This interdisciplinary work would bridge AI, robotics, and material science, advancing intelligent, end-to-end fabrication systems.
Soundscape and heritage sites
This PhD project will explore the role of acoustic environments in shaping visitor experiences at heritage sites, integrating soundscape research with architectural, cultural, and physiological perspectives. While visual and thermal factors are often prioritised in heritage studies, acoustics significantly influence emotional and cognitive engagement yet remain understudied. The research will adopt a multidisciplinary approach, combining architectural analysis of sacred and historical spaces (e.g., churches, mosques) with advanced techniques such as 3D acoustic modelling, computer simulations, and field measurements (e.g., reverberation, ambient noise). Semi-structured interviews will capture subjective visitor responses, while virtual reality experiments will isolate acoustic variables in controlled laboratory settings. Physiological assessments, including EDA and EEG, will further link objective biometric data with perceptual experiences. By synthesising qualitative and quantitative insights, this project aims to develop evidence-based acoustic design guidelines for heritage conservation, enhancing visitor well-being while preserving cultural authenticity.
Sustainable cooling strategies
This PhD will investigate how buildings can be comfortable in hot and humid tropical climates, such as West Africa, without using air-conditioning. Is it possible to design and orientate buildings so that they have cooler interiors and passive ventilation? Equally, what can we learn from ‘tropical modernist’ buildings that were previously designed in this manner – do they actually work, and if so, to what extent? Might we develop revised building regulations and design guides that demonstrate these principles and techniques. This project is also concerned with the end-user of the building – we need to consult and monitor the inhabitants of these spaces to find out comfort levels, and whether our building specifications are meeting their needs. Finally the project will investigate existing buildings with the intention of retrofitting them to use passive designs and reduce the demands on expensive and environmentally damaging resources.
Communication and Media
Deep mapping the archive city: urban cultural studies and site-specific storytelling
Academic staff attached to the Culture, Space and Memory research group in the Department of Communication and Media welcome applications for doctoral research in the area of urban cultural studies and spatial anthropology. Deep mapping the archive city is a project that explores the intersection of place/space, memory and cultures of everyday life. Seeking to reach beyond representational approaches to cultural and historical geographies of cities, the project will explore the practical and theoretical application of deep mapping as a critical-creative method of urban spatial and cultural enquiry. As spaces of representation that straddle the material, lived and symbolic, cities are a rich repository of spatial stories that necessarily require investigation from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Understanding cities as spaces encountered both in the archive as well as an archive, Deep mapping the archive city combines approaches from film and cultural studies, spatial humanities, sociocultural anthropology, and cultural geography to explore the development of new possibilities in site-specific storytelling.
Culture space and Memory research cluster
The Use of Photography during and after Contemporary Social and Political Conflicts
This project proceeds from the intuition that contemporary conflicts and crises are substantially visually mediated and that the forms these images take, their manner of creation and the uses to which they are put pose important political and ethical questions. The project will explore (typically one of) the practices, content or uses of photography around a major moment of social/political rupture using qualitative methods of visual analysis as a route into understanding the construction of the event(s) that the images are being produced and circulated in relation to.
Media, Politics and Society research cluster
The social epistemic structures of war and conflict
How do communities caught in situations of high risk uncertainty make sense of the world they find themselves in and obtain the information that they need to make a range of practical decisions (which roads are safe, who can you trust, what is the broader story of the conflict one is caught up in?). Approaches to thinking through this issue typically default to thinking of journalism as the default way of ascertaining the nature of material or social reality, but the social epistemic work of knowing the world is likely to be much more diffuse than this. This project is intended to make progress on this question through mixed methods approaches (potentially including interviews, ethnographic methods and textual analysis) and sketch a more nuanced picture of how social communities come to discover/construct the truth of the situations in which they find themselves.
Rhetoric and Resilience: Investigating Discourse and Argumentation Techniques in Corporate Crisis Communication
How does corporate communication during moments of crisis function successfully, and what can we learn from previous attempts at using rhetoric in reaction to the attention given to companies in moments of crisis? This project seeks to use insights from theories of rhetoric as a basis for conducting a close analysis of corporate communications during moments of acute institutional stress. The project may use mixed methods approaches, including close textual analysis methods such as critical discourse analysis, grounded theory or other approaches, as well as interviewing or other complementary methods.
Discourse, Data and Society research cluster
English
How languages are learnt and understood as they contribute to human communication
A possible project might involve a comparison of human and AI corrective feedback. Advances in the area of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) have engendered growing interest in how novel models of chatbots such as ChatGPT can be utilized in second or foreign language education. The aim of this project is to compare the effects of GAI and human feedback on interlanguage development in a context of the applicant's choice, with a focus on spoken corrective feedback. The proposed project would develop types of speaking tasks and operationalise corrective feedback in a specific manner, aiming to track its effects on language development over time. As affective factors such as confidence and motivation are also important in instructed second language acquisition, we would also like the project to measure how participants themselves perceive AI and human feedback.
The Language Acquisition, Learning and Teaching research cluster
How linguistic and contextual factors contribute to human communication
A possible project might explore informal text-based chat, using multi-modal corpus-based exploration. Chatting to friends and family members via text-based chat is now a very common daily practice. It is frequently multimodal in that users employ both text and visuals to develop messages. Despite this, to date there is no large corpus of informal text-based chat which allows us to examine its different features and understand how it is different from and similar to face-to-face conversation. This project will develop a corpus of text-based chat between family and friends and then examine its linguistic and textual features. The project will look to examine how common language is used in this form of chat and how language interacts with other text-based features such as emoji. We are particularly interested in projects which explore how a text-based chat corpus might usefully be applied in English language teaching and learning contexts.
The Pragmatics, Stylistics and Discourse Studies research cluster
Literary studies for speculative future
Although potential projects can have an archival or philosophical component to them, they should be primarily related to literary studies in some way. Specific projects that we are looking to engage with should deal with the relationship between science fiction and (current and/or future) social issues, particularly those facing disadvantaged or marginalised communities, or with the relationship between speculative fiction (broadly conceived) and the structures and value of different temporal frames and horizons.
The Olaf Stapledon Centre for Speculative Futures
The intersection of environmental humanities and science
We are currently looking for proposals that reflect our broad research expertise in the Environmental Humanities and related fields, from any period. Possible topics include climate change and the arts (including Cli-Fi); Energy Humanities (and questions of infrastructure more generally); literature and the Anthropocene; ecopoetics; nature writing; literature and biology; Animal Studies; posthumanism; literature of the Arctics (and other “extreme” environments); projects relating to literature and environmental justice/decolonization; theatre and science; satire and science; health and the environment.
Literature and Science Hub & Centre for New and International Writing
Creative writing and its relationship with political and social issues
Specific projects that we are looking to engage with may include writing for the stage and its relationship with political and/or social issues, particularly those facing disadvantaged or marginalised communities, or with gender; creative prose projects relating to class, capitalism and/or the medical humanities (especially projects employing unusual formal strategies); hybrid or experimental poetic projects that engage with migration and/or belonging; pandemic literatures; and research in contemporary literature and cinema.
The Centre for New and International Writing
Music
Electronic Music and Hybrid Performance Systems
This PhD centres on developing a substantial portfolio of original electronic music compositions and innovative hybrid performance systems. Candidates will conduct a comprehensive review of contemporary practices in live electronics, examining aesthetics, musical expression, and hardware and software environments.
The research will encompass practice research through composition and software patching, and theoretical research, drawing from fields such as music technology, human-computer interaction, and performance studies. Creative works may seek to integrate acoustic instruments, live electronics, software, sensors and controllers into performance systems.
Candidates can tailor their specific research focus to align with their interests and expertise. Potential areas of investigation include technology-mediated composition and performance, or the evolving interdisciplinary role of the creative technologist in electronic music.
The ideal candidate will have a strong background in electronic music composition and performance with experience in software patching.
Human and AI Co-Creativity in Music Composition and Performance
This PhD research project explores the interdisciplinary intersection of music and computing, encouraging innovative approaches to composition and performance. The focus lies on three primary areas: human and AI co-creativity, the application of machine learning to musical composition and performance and advancing human-computer interaction in musical contexts.
Candidates will develop a research project that blends creative and technical outputs. The avenues for creative exploration include composing with AI assistance and creating hybrid musical instruments that merge traditional and digital elements. On the technical side, researchers may contribute new music datasets and machine learning algorithms to generate or augment musical compositions, design AI systems capable of creative collaboration with human musicians, or develop novel interaction methods using sensors or motion capture technology to create more intuitive and expressive performance interfaces.
The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in both music and computing, allowing for a tailored project that leverages their unique skill set. This research will be jointly supported by the Music and Computer Science departments, providing a collaborative environment for interdisciplinary exploration. Whether the focus is on pushing the boundaries of AI-assisted composition, reimagining performance through human-computer interaction, or exploring new possibilities in hybrid instrumentation, this project offers the opportunity to make significant contributions to this evolving interdisciplinary landscape.
Dr Jenn Kirby, Music and Dr Jacopo de Berardinis, Computer Science
Classical Music Management and Audiences
The classical music sector is in a state of flux worldwide. Across Europe, the state funding that has supported the sector throughout the 20th Century is declining and organisations are having to seek alternative means of generating income. New concert formats, broader repertoire, and large-scale education and community engagement programmes have been implemented to reach new people and make classical music more relevant to wider society. In China, on the other hand, classical music is gaining popularity amongst younger generations, but the sector remains in its infancy in terms of insight into audience and performer experience. This field remains ripe for further study, including but not limited to the following questions:
- How are audiences engaging with classical music in Asian countries?
- How are innovations in the classical concert presentation received by audiences and are they connecting with new classical music lovers?
- What skills are needed for performers to work in the classical music industry today?
Music and Cultural Memory in European Cinema
The project explores the musical representation of cultural memory in European cinema, with a focus on understudied and/or marginalised cultures. The project will sit at the intersections of critical musicology, film studies, and cultural studies. Although the project may involve archival research, the primary research method will be audiovisual analysis, and theoretical approaches may involve critical theory, narratology, and phenomenology.
Candidates will tailor the project to suit their research interests in terms of the cultures studied, historical contexts, and styles of filmmaking (e.g. art cinema, genre cinema, international blockbusters) and will develop a project that combines close analysis of film music with social and cultural history. The ideal candidate will have demonstrable experience of research that is close to the project in terms of its geographical and historical scope, as well as skills in audiovisual analysis.
Voice and Screen Media
Since the advent of synchronised sound and the beginning of the “talkies” era, voices and moving images have worked together in weird and wonderful ways. Now nearly 100 years on from the groundbreaking developments in The Jazz Singer, the relationship between the voice and screen media has become ever more complicated, distributed across film, television, music video, video art, and a plethora of user-generated online content. The advent of AI technology has introduced the possibility of cloned voices as one element of the deepfake toolkit.
Candidates are invited to work on any element of the potential interactions between voice and screen media, including but not limited to the following areas:
- Lip-syncing and identity
- The politics of voice cloning
- Vocal ‘surprises’: the ‘mismatched’ vocalic body
- Disembodied / reembodied voices
Philosophy
Is What Makes Life Meaningful the Same for Everyone? An Exploration of Cultural Differences
In the philosophical literature on meaning in life, it is commonly assumed that what makes life meaningful is the same for everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from. It is rarely even considered that there might be cultures that have ideas about what makes life meaningful that are very different from Western standards of meaningful living but are nonetheless equally valid. This PhD project aims to determine if there are indeed cultural differences in what counts as a meaningful life, what exactly those differences consist in, and how this affects, or should affect, philosophical theorising about meaning in life. The researcher will be a member of the Speculative Futures: Mind, Meaning, and the Human Condition Research Group.
The Contribution of Refugee Scholars to C20th British Philosophy
Recent scholarship has begun to reveal the important contribution made by refugee scholars from mainland Europe to the British philosophy in 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Scholars such as Richard Walzer, Lotte Labowsky, Raymond Klibansky and Heinz Cassirer made an impact as both teachers and scholars. Among other things, they contributed to enlivening the study of classical Greek and Arabic philosophy, to deepening Kantian studies and to new work developing the burgeoning ‘analytic’ method. However, no systematic study has been made of the institutional and social conditions of their work, the work itself, nor its intellectual legacy. This PhD project requires a background in philosophy and / or history and the requisite language skills. The researcher will be a member of the Language and Experience in 20th Century Philosophy research group.