Global Challenges Research

Addressing Global Challenges with locally owned solutions is a key priority for Brunel University London. Research informed by the needs of society, delivered through research programmes co-created with the intended beneficiaries and stakeholders, is at the heart of our approach. Our Global Challenges research objective is to create new knowledge and drive innovation to develop more equitable access to sustainable development.

Research opportunities for students

Research students are welcomed to Brunel as valued members of our thriving, research-intensive community. Browse PhD opportunities below and find out about the funding available for students.

Doctoral research information

How to apply for a PhD

View list of PhDs in this area

Research focus in Global Challenges

Affordable, reliable and sustainable energy

Clean air, water and sanitation

Secure and Resilient Food Systems

Sustainable health and wellbeing

Research Centres and Groups tackling global challenges

African Studies

This research group brings together Brunel’s growing research community that is engaged with the study of Africa

Arts Health and Social Change

This Research Group is dedicated to fostering art-based initiatives that drive social change towards inclusivity and equality in healthcare.

Circular Food Forum

Leads discussions across the “food chain” with the aim to improve resource management, through working with industries and Government to respond to global pressures of growing resource scarcity and food waste.

Equitable Development and Resilience

Centred on development and social justice issues, our group continually reflects upon how individual and collective agency can contribute to meaningful change around climate action and sustainability across Global North and South nations.

Global Lives

Research conducted in the Centre addresses the challenges facing society, helping to change the lives of people around the world by bringing economic, social and cultural benefits.

Harm and Justice Research Group

The Harm and Justice Research Group brings together a diverse group of researchers, advocates, and practitioners from across the University who work on issues of harm and justice.

Institute of Communities and Society

The Institute focuses on the social, community, and cultural aspects of pressing contemporary issues including migration and movement, social unrest, intersectional inequalities, and institutionalised poverty.

Institute of Digital Futures

Brings together digital science and technology innovation and advancement, aligned with the Grand Challenges of the UK’s Industrial Strategy, thereby enhancing the global citizen’s quality of life.

Institute of Health, Medicine and Environments

Our challenge-led work in health and wellbeing focuses on understanding the relationships between biological, social, natural, and built environments and health and wellbeing outcomes.

Migration, Asylum and Law

The Migration, Asylum and Law Research Group serves as a hub for interdisciplinary teaching and research, bringing together scholars working at the intersection of migration, refugees, human rights, and law from various perspectives.

Pollution Research and Policy

Predictive approaches in toxicology, including combined chemical exposures and development of new frameworks for non-animal approaches for predicting toxicity; Endocrine disruptor research with an emphasis on mechanisms of disease and test method development; Pollution monitoring, clean-up technologies and chemical analytics.

Religion research group

The Religion Research Group (RRG) is a transdisciplinary group of scholars working on diverse dimensions of religion.

Social Justice

Concepts of social justice and understanding of climate change, health and wellbeing, digitalisation, poverty, conflict, and inequality. Our focus is on a broad social justice agenda that is alert to and critical of inequalities.

South Asia Studies

We provide a research base for the development of new South Asia specific programmes and teaching, and bring together scholars from across the University working on South Asia from different disciplinary perspectives.

Sustainable Energy Use in Food Chains

Energy demand and GHG emissions reduction in all stages of the food chain; optimal ways the food chain can utilise different energy sources and interact with the energy supply system; resource efficiency through intensification of food processing.

Sustainable Plastics

SPLaSH group combines the strengths of social scientists in the Department of Social and Political Sciences with colleagues working in the area of plastic pollution from Environmental Sciences, Design, Business & Marketing, and Engineering. We are leading experts on behaviour change, public health protection, resource and waste management, governance aspects and sustainability design.

Browse our research projects

How the Schistosoma mansoni parasite manipulates its hosts' genomes

Sustainable and healthy school food environments in Brazil

Flooding on the street in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom. with a person walking.

Maximising UK Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) Hub

Aerial view of Kathmandu, Nepal, with mountains in the background.

Equitable Climate Adaptation Pathways for the Precariously Housed (PATH)

Deterrence and the criminalisation of irregular migration

Doing good, growing strong: Catalysing economic and social impact in Jordan

Catching a Wave

Developing SustaINable Skills for DesiGners in additive manufacturing (SING)

Governing immersive biomedical tech, health and human rights in the Metaverse

Resource-smart food production and consumption

Mainstreaming gender for energy security

Increasing accessibility through mobile vaccination

Tackling food waste challenge using supply chain control towers

Leveraging millets enterprises for women's economic empowerment

Understanding rural youth identities in India

Research team member Luke Townsend doing intelligence training with local rangers.

21st century poachers: How intelligence experts are helping save the rhino

Improving higher education on Design for Sustainability

Learning Network on Sustainable Energy Systems

Sustainable Energy for All Design Toolkit

The politics of hydrogen in the UK

Does migration contribute to health inequality?

Social, ecological, political, and cultural implications of extinction

Park Royal Net Zero

Assessing endocrine disruption in birds, fish and amphibians

Integrated technology support system for tackling violence against women

Optimising eel conservation efforts

Mitigating plastic waste in Indonesia

Photo of a Mauritius landscape edited so that the church is blanked out

Understanding the causes of atheism in Mauritius

Social health in older adults from minority groups

Brunel Occupational Therapy students during a cooking lesson

Hidden curriculum of Occupational Therapy practice education

Developing sustainable bioplastic films for agricultural use

Sustainable bioplastic for Personal Protection Equipment

Real-time cloud-based clean water monitoring system

AI-driven technologies in women’s healthcare

Understanding the transnational influence of YWCA of the USA

Pandemic crisis prediction and management

Equipping Lesotho’s teachers for rural primary schools

Farm with a large cargo truck on the road

Global agricultural supply chains and trade mechanisms

Multigenerational living in London.

Pause

Case study

Strengthened farming production systems reap better harvests in Uganda

Global Challenges Brochure

Read more about our Global Challenges research

Funding

Brunel holds one of the largest portfolios of Newton Fund grants in the UK underpinning our research in Global Challenges. We also collaborate on many other international projects funded by UK Research Councils, Innovate UK, UKAID (DFID), British Council, the EU, the UN Systems and others.

Ranking

Brunel University London is ranked 40th most impactful university in the world (Times Higher Education, 2019).

Fully-funded studentships

Our funded studentships become available at different times of the year. Please keep checking our page regularly to see the latest funded opportunities. We also advertise all our funded studentships as soon as they become available on the @BrunelResearch twitter account.

View all studentships

Courses

Energy Efficient and Sustainable Technologies PhD

Global Challenges PhD

Resource Efficient Future Cities PhD

View all courses