Exercise Science, Biomedical Engineering: Fully Funded PhDs in Biomechanics and in Data analyti[...]

European Commission; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 21,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading university in the UK offers two PhD scholarships focusing on improving motor skills in children with developmental coordination disorder. Candidates will work with interdisciplinary teams to develop and analyze innovative interventions and assessments. The positions provide training in biomechanics, data analytics, and motion capture, contributing to impactful research aimed at enhancing children's physical abilities.

Benefits

Full tuition fees covered

Annual stipend at UKRI rate

Research expenses up to £1,000 per year

Qualifications

• Experience with motion capture or coding is desirable but not essential.
• Comfortable working in a numerical environment.

Responsibilities

• Examine motor coordination and control during walking and running in children.
• Develop novel mathematical analyses of movement data.

Skills

Data Analytics

Biomechanics

Motion Capture

Statistical Analysis

Numerical Analysis

Education

PhD

Degree in Sport and Exercise Science

Degree in Biomedical Engineering

Degree in Engineering

Degree in Physics

Degree in Mathematics

Degree in Computing

Job description

Organisation/Company Swansea University Department Central Research Field Other Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Positions PhD Positions Country United Kingdom Application Deadline 2 Jun 2025 - 23:59 (Europe/London) Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 35 Offer Starting Date 1 Oct 2025 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

We have 2 PhD scholarships available, linked to a Waterloo Foundation project on the development of motor skills in children – Moves-UP. The 2 PhD students will work alongside the wider Moves-UP team, including academics in the departments of Sports & Exercise Science and Biomedical Engineering at Swansea University, clinical staff within the Swansea Bay University Health Board and teachers within a local Swansea schools network. The Moves-UP project addresses physical movement difficulties in children. Specifically, Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), a neurodevelopmental condition which impairs motor planning and coordination, complicating the acquisition of skills such as running and balancing. Learning difficulties further affect cognitive processing, motor planning, and execution, while limited opportunities for physical play restrict skill development, perpetuating a negative cycle of reduced activity and motor skill acquisition. Evidence suggests that targeted interventions, including adapted physical education, free play, and sports-based programs, can improve children's physical movement skills. The Moves-UP project works with children from across the Swansea area, in a school-based project and uses multiple assessment approaches: Inertial Monitoring Units (IMUs), high-resolution kinematics and a dynamic motor coordination assessment (Short Form Dragon Challenge) to compare the movement patterns of children with suspected DCD to their typically developing peers. The collective aims of the programme are to:

• Help practitioners quickly and efficiently identify and diagnose children with movement difficulties and DCD.
• Develop effective approaches for improving movement quality and life skills in children with movement difficulties and DCD.

The 2 PhD studentships will involve interaction with both Sport & Exercise Sciences and Biomedical Engineering departments, with a lead department identified for each. They will provide specific support for the Moves-UP programme in the following areas:

• PhD 1 – biomechanics of movement coordination in children (Lead department: Sport and Exercise Sciences)
  • This PhD will examine how motor coordination and control develop during walking and running transitions in children with motor difficulties and their typically developing peers. Using both a high-resolution marker-based capture system and open-access markerless systems, the project will assess interlimb coordination and joint kinematics during gait and dual-task conditions. Embedded within the wider Moves-UP programme, the candidate will receive training in advanced motion analysis, biomechanical modelling, and statistical approaches to human movement. Analytical methods will draw on coordination dynamics and motor control analysis (e.g. vector coding) to evaluate movement patterns in relation to task demands. Outcomes will contribute to the development of accessible assessment tools and support early identification and intervention for children with motor challenges in real-world settings.
  • Expertise required: the PhD is open to graduates from a biomechanics or motor control background (e.g. Sport and Exercise Science, Biomedical Engineering or another relevant discipline). Experience with motion capture or coding is desirable but not essential.
• PhD 2 – data analytics for diagnosis of neurodiverse conditions (Lead department: Biomedical Engineering)
  • The aim is to identify fingerprints of movement that differentiate children’s movement ability and quantify the degree of any coordination disorder. Working with over 100 children across 5 schools in the Swansea Bay area, wearable movement sensors (accelerometers) have been used to capture children’s activity and movement patterns at millisecond resolution over 7 days a week. The central objective of the PhD project is to develop novel mathematical and computational analyses of the data to obtain information across multiple timescales, to visualise these dense datasets and to construct easily interpretable, robust metrics for health practitioners, teachers and parents. A wide range of signal processing algorithms will be tested, e.g. dynamic time warping, correlation, and Fourier analysis to extract important features in the data streams. Dimensional reduction techniques will then be used to provide key indicator metrics from the multidimensional datasets. Alongside this, multidimensional statistical tests will be incorporated. Deep learning based analysis will be pursued alongside these traditional approaches. Here, visualisations of the data in 2-D ‘movement maps’ will be used with image-based neural networks.
  • Expertise required: the PhD is open to graduates from a numerate or computational background (e.g. Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, Computing degree) AND those from a Sport and Exercise Science background who are comfortable working in a numerical environment and interested in developing their analytical skillset.

IELTS 6.5 Overall (5.5+ each comp.) or Swansea University recognised equivalent. Full details of our English Language policy, including certificate time validity, can be found here .

Additional Information

This scholarship covers the full cost of tuition fees and an annual stipend at UKRI rate (currently £20,780 for 2025/26).

Additional research expenses of up to £1,000 per year will also be available.

Eligibility criteria

UK Students Only.Due to funding restrictions, this scholarship is open to applicants eligible to pay tuition fees at the UK rate only, as defined by UKCISA regulations

Please see our website for more information