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Website University of Liverpool
Closing date: 13th October
NIHR ARC NWC offers a funded PhD at Liverpool on how unpaid care affects education, work and wellbeing for young adult carers.
Research on unpaid carers has largely concentrated on middle-aged and older people caring for ageing parents or partners. Far less is known about young adult carers aged 16 to 25 — people making decisions about education, training and career at exactly the point they take on caring responsibilities.
This PhD will identify how providing unpaid care affects education, employment and wellbeing in this group, and how those effects differ across socio-economic, gender and ethnic backgrounds. It will then develop supportive pathways to help young adult carers enter and stay in the workforce while continuing to care. The work combines a review, semi-structured interviews and survey design, with two young adult carers involved as public advisors on study documents, interpretation and dissemination.
The student will be part of the University of Liverpool’s Dementia Health and Social Care Inequalities Research Group and the NIHR ARC Social Care theme, with opportunities to present throughout and to publish as the work progresses.
Supervisory team
- Dr Clarissa Giebel (primary supervisor)
- Professor Mark Gabbay
Who this suits
Applicants interested in unpaid care, health inequalities and social care research, comfortable working across qualitative and survey methods. You’ll need at least a UK Bachelor’s honours degree at 2:1 or equivalent in a relevant discipline, awarded (or formally confirmed) by 1 January 2027, and you must meet the University of Liverpool’s doctoral entry requirements.
How to apply
You must speak to Dr Clarissa Giebel (Clarissa.Giebel@liverpool.ac.uk) before you apply — applications made without prior contact with the supervisory team will not be shortlisted.
Applications are made to ARC NWC first, using their application form, and include applicant details, your chosen project and a research proposal of up to 1,000 words. You’ll also need to consult the FOR Equity Toolkit (https://forequity.uk/) and show how you’ve applied it in your proposal. Send the completed form to ARCNWC@Lancashire.ac.uk by 1.00pm on 13 October 2026. Successful applicants are then referred to the University of Liverpool to complete registration.
Full details and the application form: https://arc-nwc.nihr.ac.uk/opportunities/phd-opportunties/arc-nwc-doctoral-award-round-1-open/
- Institution: University of Liverpool
- Funder: NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast (ARC NWC) — Doctoral Award, Round 1 (Project ref 022)
- Theme: Social Care
- Salary / funding: £21,805 per year tax-free stipend, UK Home tuition fees, £1,000 per year training grant
- Hours: Full-time, 3 years
- Closing date: 1.00pm, 13 October 2026
- Interviews: 23–24 November 2026
- Start date: By 1 February 2027
To apply for this job please visit arc-nwc.nihr.ac.uk.
