The Department of Philosophy is pleased to announce a new PhD studentship in Philosophy starting in January 2015. This position is attached to a research project, ‘Grading Evidence of Mechanisms in Physics and Biology‘, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Professor Jon Williamson.

Science is largely involved with discovering mechanisms. While protocols have been developed in evidence-based medicine for grading evidence of correlations, much less has been said about how to grade evidence of mechanisms that are on the path to discovery in science – this task is typically left to the intuition of individual researchers.

The primary purposes of this role are to produce excellent research in philosophy and to contribute to the success of the research project. The candidate will be expected to write a PhD thesis on the research questions tackled by the project, to write research papers, to disseminate project research in seminars, workshops and conferences, and to organise project events. The candidate will also be expected to interact with departmental research clusters and with the Centre for Reasoning.

The studentship will run for three years (full-time equivalent) and will cover Home/EU fees as well as maintenance grant in line with Leverhulme maintenance funding.

Applicants are expected to have an upper-second class honours degree in a relevant discipline and an MA in Philosophy (either awarded or predicted in writing by the MA Programme Convenor by the time of application). Further details about the position are available on the SECL webpages.

To apply, please send a cover letter, CV, a sample of written work and two references, to Jacqui Martlew.

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Wednesday 3 September 2014. Interviews are to be held on 22 September 2015, with the PhD expected to start on 5 January 2015.