The Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science (SCCS) 2026 studentship

This is an opportunity for a highly-motivated PhD student to join a leading interdisciplinary group tackling one of the most exciting questions in science: the nature of consciousness. The Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science (SCCS) is an internationally prominent research group in consciousness science and one of the University’s Centres of Excellence.  Our core mission is to advance the scientific understanding of consciousness and to use the insights from this research for the benefit of society, medicine, and technology.

We invite innovative research proposals on any topic within consciousness science that have a strong Informatics focus. The proposed research should contain a substantial mathematical or computational modelling component and/or utilise cutting-edge data science methodology. Your proposal can be focused within one discipline, or bring together methods and concepts from different disciplines within the Centre. In your application, you should name a preferred main supervisor from the Department of Informatics. In addition, you can optionally propose a second supervisor from one of the other Departments or Schools central to the Centre. Proposals must lie within the scope of the supervisor(s) expertise and have feasible equipment and data requirements.  

Based in our Informatics Lab, you will be part of a diverse, interdisciplinary team which spans the departments of Informatics, Philosophy, Psychology and Brighton & Sussex Medical School, and which enjoys a wide range of experimental and computational facilities (including EEG/TMS/fMRI and VR). The group has strong collaborative links beyond Sussex, including leading consciousness researchers both nationally and internationally.