PhD scholarship (International/Home) on Programming languages for Design Computation (3.5 years)

Value

The studentship will cover tuition fees for the full-time duration at the standard postgraduate ‘Home’ rate (£5,238 for 2026/27) or ‘International’ rate (£23,950 for 2026/27), plus a combined maintenance grant equivalent to the Research Councils UK National Minimum Doctoral Stipend (£21,805 for 2026/27, with yearly inflationary uplift) for 3.5 years. Included is a travel budget (£15,000 total) and contingency funding.

Deadline

The deadline for a 2027 April start is 22nd December 2026 23:59 GMT

Further details

This PhD project is at the intersection of programming languages (PL) and Design Computation (DC).  Design Computation is an approach in architecture, engineering, and construction that leverages computation to generate building designs, manage the associated data, and evaluate decision decisions. DC differs to CAD where the designer uses interactive geometry applications to manually create the finished building design. In Design Computation however, programs are written to generate the designs themselves as their output, explicitly programming the logic and method of its realisation.

This PhD project responds to the challenge: how can the unique ways of collaborative thinking and reasoning, which characterise the multi-disciplinary design of physical architecture and building engineering, be supported by new forms of programming languages, programming systems, and programming tools? A recent position paper by the primary supervisor (Dr Dominic Orchard), external partner, and industrial sponsor sets out a vision of possible areas for exploration.

The funding for this international scholarship is kindly provided with the support of Buro Happold who will act as an industrial partner throughout this PhD project. To help answer the particular challenges addressed in this PhD, the candidate will be supported by collaboration with the advanced industrial practice within the sponsoring organisation. This will provide both the opportunity to gain insight from engineers in industry, and to consider the route to impact and deployment. The potential exists for the ideas and methods developed in this specific domain to evolve into more general-purpose programming paradigms.

For more details and ideas see: PhD scholarship (International/Home) on Programming languages for Design Computation (3.5 years) - Scholarships search - University of Kent

Enquiries should be directed to the PGR Admissions team;

pgradmissions@kent.ac.uk or for technical discussion to Dr Orchard d.a.orchard@kent.ac.uk.

Criteria

Candidates will demonstrate academic excellence, outstanding research potential. Applicants should have, or expect to obtain, a first or upper second-class honours degree in a relevant subject, and ideally a Master’s degree or equivalent. The studentship is open to Home and Overseas (including EU) students, for 3.5 years, with travelling funding included.

Appropriate candidates should also have:

• interest, knowledge, and experience in programming language design;
• a desire to work on inter-disciplinary projects;
• a strong mathematical background/training.

How to apply

Please apply for a Computer Science PhD.  As part of the process, please include the following:

• make it clear the applicant wants to be considered for the PL4DC PhD studentship on the application;
• explain reasons for including a research proposal (of roughly 4-5 pages), setting forward a vision of what the PhD might look like (though students should not feel beholden to the proposal);
• provide details/evidence of qualifications;
• provide two academic references;
• provide other personal information and supporting documentation;
• Applicants may contact the supervisor, Dr. Dominic Orchard, before applying if they wish to discuss particular around research proposal ideas