We invite applications from qualified and highly motivated students for a 3.5-year St Andrews–Max Planck PhD studentship in Population Health. The PhD studentship is funded by the University of St Andrews and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR). The PhD student will be working in the intersection of population health, kinship demography and geography. The project will investigate how adult children contribute to their parents’ health and survival (including the role of residential proximity). The project will involve analysis of individual-level data from high-income countries (including the UK). The project will be part of the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science (IMPRS-PHDS) imprs-phds.mpg.de and The Connecting Generations Centre (CGC) cpc.ac.uk/research_programme. The studentship is available from January 2023.

In the first 21 months, the successful applicant will be working in the Laboratory of Population Health at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, one of the leading centres for demographic research in the world. Please see:
demogr.mpg.de/population_health.

For the remainder of the studentship, they will be working at the University of St Andrews. They will become a member of the Population and Health Research Group at the School of Geography and Sustainable Development (SGSD), which combines expertise in advanced techniques of demographic, longitudinal and spatial analysis. For further details about the research group, please see: populationandhealth.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk. The student is expected to use the opportunity of preparing a PhD thesis as a collection of research articles according to the PGR regulations of the University of St Andrews.

During the period in Germany, the PhD student will be paid according to the MPIDR rules and regulations. This includes: 1) A contract currently amounting to a gross salary of about €34,295 per year, including a Christmas bonus (Weihnachtsgeld); and 2) Financial support for travel, research training, and data acquisition. During the period in the UK, the St Andrews–Max Planck PhD studentship will cover: 1) A maintenance grant of £16,062 per year (in the 2022/23 academic year, subject to increase annually according to the ESRC rules and regulations); 2) A research training support grant (RTSG) of £750 per year; and 3) Full tuition fee waiver.

This is an excellent opportunity for a highly motivated PhD student to join an international team of researchers applying advanced quantitative methods and statistical modelling to a cutting-edge population and health science topic. Students with an excellent master’s degree (distinction or merit in the UK) or the equivalent national qualification in any area of social, health and environmental sciences including statistics and applied mathematics who are interested in this opportunity must submit their application by 26th September, 2022. Please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes at: st-andrews.ac.uk/study/apply. Please apply to the programme “PhD Geography (Science)”. Please include a cover letter outlining your interest in applying advanced quantitative methods to studying populations. Please also upload an academic writing sample (normally a chapter of a Masters dissertation) to your online application. Shortlisted applicants will be interviewed in the first half of October. The University of St Andrews and the Max Planck Society strive for equal opportunities. Applications of any background are welcome. The Max Planck Society is committed to increasing the number of individuals with disabilities in its workforce and therefore encourages applications from such qualified individuals. Furthermore, the Max Planck Society seeks to increase the number of women in those areas where they are underrepresented and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply.

For informal inquiries, please contact Dr. Yana Vierboom (vierboom@demogr.mpg.de), Dr. Júlia Mikolai (Julia.Mikolai@st-andrews.ac.uk), Prof. Mikko Myrskylä (office-myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de) and Prof. Hill Kulu (Hill.Kulu@st-andrews.ac.uk). For informal enquires about the application process please contact Helen Olaez at: gsdpgradmin@st-andrews.ac.uk. Please include ‘St Andrews–Max Planck PhD studentship’ in the subject line of your email.