‘Innovation and Enterprise Ecosystems: Optimising Business and Economic Development in the Forth Water Basin’ – – A prestigious, fully-funded, 4-year PhD studentship linked to an exciting, ground-breaking £5m UKRI-funded Local Policy Innovation Partnership

This exciting and prestigious PhD Studentship, fully funded by the University of Stirling, will consider how ‘enterprise ecosystems’ utilise water resources to help drive innovation for sustainable and inclusive economic development across six key business sectors: Energy, Food and Drink, Biotechnology, Agriculture, Tourism and Construction.

Water resources provide essential ‘goods’ and ‘services’ and huge opportunities for the economy, society and communities. Harnessing these productively is a key route to optimising growth, value and community outcomes, as well as meeting important environmental goals. Do you want to contribute to our high-profile and cutting-edge research on these issues as part of an interdisciplinary team? If so, this studentship will appeal to you.

The studentship is linked with a ground-breaking £5m UKRI-funded Local Policy Innovation Partnership project. This major Partnership, called ‘FORTH₂O’, involves seven Universities/Institutes, and over eighty stakeholder partners (including Scottish Government, Scottish Water, SEPA, Scottish Canals, Forth Ports, City Region Deals, Local Authorities, Health Boards, FE Colleges, Innovation Centres, and Chambers of Commerce, alongside numerous national agencies and organisations, environmental charities and community organisations).

This important PhD project will consider multi-level and multi-stakeholder support for ‘business ecosystems’ and opportunities (including upscaling, diversification, clustering, or access to new markets), as well as the facilitating roles of labour markets and skills development. The ‘enterprise ecosystem’ concept denotes complex interlinkages and inter-dependencies among businesses and other actors along a value chain (Rocha et al, 2021). This a significant opportunity to extend conceptual and empirical knowledge concerning multi-level economic development at national, regional, local, and community levels (Knox & Arshed, 2021), asking: ‘how does innovation across ‘enterprise ecosystems’ promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth?’. Sustainability and inclusiveness are retained as key points of focus throughout, acknowledging that the water environment faces important challenges in the context of economic growth pressures, as well as other factors such as climate change. Our intelligent, basin-level perspective will align new thinking on these issues (Houston et al, 2021).

The successful candidate will consider novel distributions of business activity and associated labour market implications (e.g. upskilling, reskilling, mobility). This will contribute an exciting new focus for ‘regional regeneration’ or ‘community wealth building’ approaches to economic development, which aim to tackle long-standing inequalities and promote healthier community economies (NIESR, 2022; ScotGov, 2022). There is thus considerable scope for mixed methods in the construction of this research, which the successful candidate will be expected to shape with support from the supervisory team. This PhD project will provide a significant and timely contribution to knowledge – the results have the potential to inform innovative policy and practice on these important topics, not only within the FORTH₂O Partnership, but across the UK and internationally.

—

Supervisors

Dr. Stephen Knox (Senior Lecturer in Stirling Management School and FORTH2O Work Package lead for business and industry) [email protected]

Prof. Iain Docherty (Dean of Stirling Institute of Advanced Studies and FORTH2O inclusive growth champion) [email protected]

Prof. Richard Simmons (Professor of Public and Social Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences and LPIP/FORTH2O project lead) [email protected]

NB. The successful candidate will also benefit from working with other academic colleagues and stakeholder partners across the whole Partnership in developing, enriching and applying their research. 

—

Essential Attributes:

• Master’s degree (awarded at Merit or above) in a relevant academic discipline
• Good fundamental knowledge of social science research methods through accredited doctoral research training.
• Strong motivation, with evidence of independent research skills relevant to the project
• Competent in discipline-specific conceptual knowledge
• Good written and oral communication skills
• Creativity and versatility
• Good time management
• Willingness and ability to work as part of a team within the wider FORTH₂O Project

Desirable Attributes:

• Award of Distinction in Master’s degree
• Knowledge and/or experience of relevant engagement with business networks
• Knowledge of statistical applications (e.g. SPSS, Stata, R or Python)
• Knowledge and/or experience of qualitative data collection and analysis

Application Procedure:

Please send the following documents with the e-mail title ‘FORTH₂O Business Innovation PhD Studentship’ to [email protected] by the closing date 26th August 2024 (NB. Indicative interview date 4th September 2024);

(1)  An up-to-date academic CV, detailing your education and qualifications; employment history; publications; and any other relevant information.

(2)  Copies of the academic transcript and certificate from both your Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. If your Master’s degree is pending, please provide an interim transcript.

(3)  The names and contact details of two academic referees, one of which should be your Master’s dissertation supervisor. Referees will not be contacted unless you are invited to interview.

(4)  A supporting statement of a maximum of 1500 words in two sections:

o  Your motivation for applying for this studentship

o  How your previous experience will support you in developing this PhD project, with regard to the essential/desirable attributes listed above

NB. A full PhD Proposal is NOT required.

The studentship will be based at the University of Stirling. The University is situated on a beautiful 330-acre campus just outside the historic city of Stirling. The campus offers a peaceful yet stimulating environment with everything you need for a good work-life balance. It boasts sports, academic, entertainment and cultural facilities as well as a loch, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and an 18-century castle. In Stirling Management School you’ll discover a welcoming and supportive learning environment that will equip you with all you need to make a significant difference in the world.

We are committed to creating a workplace that promotes and values diversity. We strongly encourage applications from people from diverse backgrounds including gender identity, race, age, class, and ethnicity.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this studentship further, please contact Dr. Stephen Knox ([email protected]).