PhD Studentship: Welsh Injury Surveillance in Girls Youth Rugby

Fully funded 3-year PhD studentship

Project overview

One of World Rugby’s five development priorities is to increase global participation in female rugby to 2 million. The route to achieving this is through increased youth female participation and providing player welfare information. The project aims to address the paucity of injury risk information available in youth female rugby populations, specifically in the community game. Findings from this project will contribute novel data to two of World Rugby’s player welfare research priorities, namely (i) player welfare research in women’s rugby, and (ii) injury surveillance and prevention at all levels of the game.

The studentship is funded by World Rugby (link ) and supported by the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) (link ) and covers the full cost of tuition fees and a stipend for three years (approx. £16,100, per annum). The studentship can commence between July 2023 and September 2023.

Supervisor(s): Dr Julian Owen, Dr Vicky Gottwald and Seren Evans

Person specification

Essential requirements:

• First or Upper Second-Class undergraduate degree in a relevant subject
• Committed and self-motivated
• Strong written and oral communication skills

Desirable qualities:

• A Masters degree in in a relevant subject
• Experience of quantitative data analysis, injury epidemiology research and rugby union settings

Research Environment

Bangor University is situated among the breath-taking landscape of North Wales (link ). The School of Human and Behavioural Sciences houses (link ) the Department of Sport and Exercise Science. Recently, 100% of our research has been rated as world-leading or internationally excellent by the REF-2021 committee, placing us in the UK top-5 research institutions in sport and exercise science. Our School offers postgraduate researchers an excellent research environment, with a large community of PhD students, research-active faculty and events targeted at broader professional development.

Residency requirements.

This studentship covers in full the tuition fees for British citizens and other nationals who do not require a visa (e.g., Europeans with settled status, Irish) International candidates are very welcome to apply; however, they need to contact Dr Julian Owen to discuss the possibility of tuition fees waivers.

General information.

The initial appointment for the position will be for one year, with an extension of two years after a positive evaluation of progress. The appointment must lead to the completion of a PhD thesis.

How to apply:

All applications must be received on 19th May 2023 by 00:00 (midnight) UK time through our online application system: apps.bangor.ac.uk/applicant

www.bangor.ac.uk/studentfinance/postgraduate/funding

Applications must contain the following documents:

• Curriculum Vitae. This should be no longer than two pages.
• Cover letter.
• Reference letters. Include two letters from academic staff to be submitted in support for this specific application.
• Research proposal: four pages including a concise literature review, description of potential research questions, hypotheses, the approach to collecting and analysing data.
• If English is not your first language or if you have not completed university education in an English-speaking institution, provide proof of English language proficiency such as IELTS (minimum 7.0 overall) or equivalent certification.

General enquiries: For general advice visit the Bangor Doctoral School Website (www.bangor.ac.uk/doctoral-school ). Informal enquiries about the studentship should be directed to Dr. Julian Owen, email: [email protected] .