PhD Scholarship for The Impact of Future Human Values and Practices on Australia’s Net Zero and Digital Transitions

Job No.: 679372

Location: Caulfield campus 

Employment Type: Full-time

Duration: 3.5-year fixed-term appointment 

Remuneration: The successful applicant will receive a Faculty-funded Stipend scholarship (Living Allowance) and Tuition Fee Remission Scholarship, Relocation Allowance (up to $1000 interstate and $1,500 overseas) and Single coverage of Overseas Student Healthcare Cover (OSHC) for a maximum of 57 months. (overseas applicants only). Living Allowance current value: $36,063 p.a. 2025 full-time rate (tax-free stipend); (annually indexed plus allowances as per RTP/MGRO stipend conditions: www.monash.edu/graduate-research/future-students/support/scholarship-conditions-of-award)

• Be inspired, every day
• Take your career in exciting and rewarding directions at one of the world’s top 80 universities

Everyone needs a platform to launch a satisfying career. At Monash, we give you the space and support to take your career in all kinds of exciting new directions with access to quality research, infrastructure and learning facilities. We’re a university full of energetic and enthusiastic minds, driven to challenge what’s expected, expand what we know, and learn from other inspiring, empowering thinkers. Innovative, supportive, successful and with great breadth and depth of talent. 

Monash University strongly advocates diversity, equality, fairness and openness. We fully support the gender equity principles of the Athena SWAN Charter.

This is an opportunity for an outstanding PhD candidate with a background in social anthropology, design anthropology and/ or visual anthropology, and an interest in developing innovative new research in futures anthropology to win a scholarship within a research programme focused on the Impact of Human Futures on Australia’s Net Zero and Digital Transitions, funded by a Prestigious five-year Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship awarded to Professor Sarah Pink (2024-2029).

The PhD student will be located in FUTURES Hub at Monash’s Emerging Technologies Lab (ETLab), one of Australia’s most innovative research facilities, and in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. They will work with Laureate Professor Pink, up to four Research Associates and three PhD students. 

FUTURES Hub is a world-class research, communication, meeting and dissemination nexus for Futures research and activity. It is our response to this moment where we live with elevated future uncertainties in a changing climate, in our applications of emerging technologies, and for our communities and everyday life. At the moment there is simply insufficient knowledge about our possible futures, and a need for new qualitative techniques for investigating, understanding, communications and action in relation to possible futures.

The Emerging Technologies Research Lab, directed by Laureate Professor Sarah Pink, is an interdisciplinary and international research and knowledge community. We investigate the futures, present and past of our social, experiential and political worlds. Our world-class academic and engaged scholarship innovates and delivers new techniques and knowledge carefully designed to deliver new, inclusive and effective understandings and impact in response to the urgent need to better plan for futures with and for people and other species, emerging technologies and climate. The is based across the Faculties of Information Technology and of Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) at Monash University, and has a vibrant community of researchers as well as an exciting international network. 

The Opportunity

To grapple with the theoretical, methodological and ethnographic innovations into futures research that the Laureate Programme involves, we need the best and brightest minds. We invite suitable candidates to apply for the following exciting opportunity:

To be considered for this position you should fulfil the entry requirements for Monash HDR candidates and have a background in social anthropology, design anthropology and/ or visual anthropology, and an interest in developing innovative new research in futures anthropology. You will undertake your own original research, designed to contribute to the Laureate Fellowship agenda, supervised by Professor Sarah Pink and one or more appropriate supervisors. You will also collaborate in team projects within the research programme and have opportunities to participate in the FUTURES Hub and ETLab international research community. 

This position has a two-stage selection process:

To apply for this position please submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) form via the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash, within the Department of Design here: www.monash.edu/mada/future-students/graduate-research/apply.

Your research will align with and contribute to the Laureate Fellowship programme of research through a focus on possible future working lives in 2030 and 2050 in the construction/building industry. The wider agenda of the research programme is as follows: Transition to an inclusive, trusted sustainable future depends on successfully aligning technological, climate and human futures. Yet our knowledge about human futures is inadequate, lacking the qualitative foresight crucial to Australia’s transition to digital and automated technologies and net zero carbon emissions. This fellowship will innovate new ethnographic methods to investigate the role of future human values, practices and trust in developing a path towards technologically supported environmental sustainability. The research programme will deliver a sector-crossing base of knowledge about human futures and a framework for qualitative futures research with applications in planning for digital and net zero transitions. 

Your EOI will include a research proposal. When writing your proposal please keep in mind the following focus: Our research focuses on possible futures, and we are interested in questions relating to - What possible work roles would exist in a future construction industry in 2030 and 2050? Will traditional building work still be undertaken? How will robotic, AI and as yet unknown emerging technologies collaborate with people and other species in all stages of building work? Who could diverse future workers be? How will workers experience possible futures workplaces? (for example when building remotely, in extreme temperatures or in outer-space?); What new work roles might be created through sustainable building in 2030 and 2050? (for example, how will re-use, recycling and repair work be part of the future of building?); What kinds of organisations will people work for? And what kinds of jobs will they have? (for instance, think beyond the traditional construction company to a new configuration as diverse as tech startups, companies building in outer space, craftspeople, re-use and repair experts or troubleshooters). Fieldwork for the PhD will be undertaken in Australia. 

The EOI for this position should: outline your interest in being a PhD candidate within Professor Pink’s Laureate Fellowship programme; summarise the theoretical, methodological and practical approaches you are interested in pursuing in a PhD and your interests in engaging with innovative visual, design, futures or speculative ethnographic methodologies. The proposal should demonstrate an enthusiasm for theoretical research into digital, emerging technology and net zero futures, with reference to new questions about work futures in the building/construction industry. Applications for both written thesis and thesis with a practice-based documentary filmmaking element are both welcome. 

Candidates who pass this stage of the selection process will be invited to discuss their ideas with Professor Pink before developing a full proposal and submitting an application. 

Enquiries: Professor Sarah Pink, sarah.pink@monash.edu 

Applications Close: Monday 16 June 2025, 11:55pm AEST