Knowing Animals: The Leverhulme Doctoral Programme on Interdisciplinary Pathways to Multispecies Understanding
Applications for September 2027 entry are now OPEN.
Details below provide guidance on the studentships for 2027 entry.
The Knowing Animals Leverhulme Doctoral Programme on Interdisciplinary Pathways to Multispecies Understanding draws together multiple disciplines to bring animal perspectives into decision making. It is led by the Royal Veterinary College in collaboration with University of Exeter. The partnership is offering up to 8 fully funded doctoral studentships for September 2027 entry. Successful applicants will either complete their PhD at the Royal Veterinary College or the University of Exeter (for more information please see ‘how to apply’ section below) for a 4-year study period.
The Knowing Animals Leverhulme Doctoral Programme scholarships are fully funded. This includes covering an annual stipend and tuition fees, with an additional £10,000 for research and training.
Project information
Animals have their own knowledge, experiences and perceptions, and are deeply embedded within human worlds. Humans and other animals know each other and their environments in many, multifaceted ways. We may use a cow to power the plough, as meat for a burger, to ride for rodeo entertainment, or treat the cow as a patient or a deity. Cows may view humans as providers or predators and respond with affection, fear or in a more complex and nuanced way than many might imagine. How humans and other animals understand and interact with their environments and each other continually shifts with technological advances, globalisation, cultural change, and landscape transformation. This matters because these knowledges and relationships, and how we understand them, underlie many global challenges and unforeseen outcomes of human-centric actions, including food security, antimicrobial resistance, biodiversity loss, global warming and ethical considerations around animal breeding and use.
Science provides increasingly grounded and nuanced representations of other animals’ lived experiences, challenging our assumptions and demonstrating how little we still know about different species’ evolved knowledges. In parallel, the humanities, arts, and social sciences are recognising the importance of animal knowledge to human society and policy. They are revealing how different forces shaping human understandings of animals influence our relationships, and polarise views about how animals experience their lives, the duties we owe them, how they should live and which interests should prevail.
Further information on research areas and projects can be found via the following link https://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/phd/knowing-animals#tab-research-areas-projects
Knowing Animals will explore the complex interconnections between humans and other animals, improving biological understandings of animal perspectives and their integration into multispecies representation. We will equip scholars to transform how we value and enact these relationships to shape our shared futures.
Knowing Animals aims to:
- reveal the diverse, situated and often contested ways in which other animals and humans perceive, interpret and respond to each other and their shared worlds;
- work across otherwise fractured endeavours, facilitating disciplinary exchange to create new insights on the influences, power, commonalities and differences in animal-human relationships across situations and scales, advancing an emerging area of international importance;
- create the leadership capacity needed to translate these insights into practical interventions and cultural change across policy, industry, and civil society.
Programme Leaders
Dr Siobhan Abeyesinghe, Royal Veterinary College
Siobhan leads the RVC’s Animal Welfare Science and Ethics group. Her research explores animal behaviour, cognition and welfare, with a particular focus on understanding animals’ experiences and applying scientific evidence to improve their lives.
Associate Professor Joah Madden, University of Exeter
Joah is an animal behaviour researcher whose work explores animal cognition, social behaviour and the relationships between animals and their environments. His research contributes to understanding how animals interact with and respond to the world around them.
We invite applications from candidates who hold/or expect to hold a first or upper second-class honours degree (or equivalent), or an Masters degree from a range of disciplines across Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) and Humanities Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) disciplines
Candidates with a lower second class degree supplemented by a Masters qualification (in a relevant subject) or relevant professional experience will also be considered.
We welcome applications from candidates who have followed a non-traditional educational or career pathway, particularly where applicants can demonstrate relevant professional, research or industry experience and the potential to succeed in doctoral study.
You must be able to communicate clearly in English, both verbally and in writing. Please review the RVC’s English Language Proficiency pages to see if you need to provide evidence of your English language proficiency.
If you are not exempt from proving your English language proficiency, you must take an IELTS-Academic test (from the British Council). You need to achieve an overall score of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each sub-test, and the test result must have been obtained within 2 years of the start-date of the course.
Please submit your application here
PhD applications are checked for eligibility by the Admissions team, and eligible candidates are then short-listed by the academic panel. Short-listed PhD applicants will be invited to an interview online with a panel of senior academics from both the RVC and Exeter.
Successful applicants will be offered a provisional place on the programme subject to acceptance of their project and institution allocation.
They will be given the opportunity to discuss offered projects with potential supervisors before indicating their project preferences. Final project allocation will be determined by the Programme Board, taking into account candidate preferences alongside other programme requirements, and communicated to applicants for acceptance.
The deadline for this studentship opportunity is Tuesday the 12th January 2027.
If you have any questions or concerns about the policy or handling of your application, please contact our Admissions Team at admissions@rvc.ac.uk
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