York leads new PhD network on marine historical ecology

News | Posted on Tuesday 4 June 2019

Project SeaChanges will support 15 fully-funded PhD studentships to train researchers in archaeology and marine ecology.

The Department is leading a major new PhD training network on the archaeology of marine resource use across Europe and beyond. Funded by the EU's Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, the four-year project SeaChanges: thresholds in human exploitation of marine vertebrates is a collaboration between the Universities of York, Groningen, Copenhagen, Oslo, Bologna and Cambridge, and the Marine Research Institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

SeaChanges will support 15 fully-funded PhD studentships across the seven institutions, including two here in York for which applications are now open:

Each with its own dedicated research budget, the 15 PhDs will be share a comprehensive programme of training workshops in bioarchaeology, marine ecology, data science, and science communication.

Project Coordinator Dr David Orton explained the concept: "The idea of using archaeological and historical data to inform contemporary environmental issues isn't exactly new, but the problem has always been training.

"Archaeologists like me want to address pressing issues of overfishing, climate change and so on, but don't have the marine ecology training to do so, while a lot of marine biologists and fisheries scientists want to incorporate long-term perspectives in their models, but wouldn't know where to start with archaeological data.

"What we're going to do through this network is train a new generation of researchers with a solid background in both archaeology and marine ecology, who won't be held back by these disciplinary barriers and will be able to realise the full potential of archaeological remains for understanding human impact on the seas".

  • The Department is advertising for a Project Manager to help run the network - deadline Sunday 2 June 2019.