PhD Studentship in Behavioural Economics, Behavioural Finance, and Behavioural Science

PhD Studentship in Behavioural Economics, Behavioural Finance, and Behavioural Science

Recruitment and policy information dates to 13 October 2026. The advertisement carries a 6 October update, which does not establish its first publication date. Current application availability is unconfirmed.

Quick Decision

This is a flexible behavioural research opportunity with Professor Chris Dawson in the University of Bath School of Management, starting 4 October 2027. Its distinctive question is how people form expectations and make choices under risk and delay: a doctoral proposal could connect economic models, psychological mechanisms and empirical measurement. The advantage is a named supervisor publishing original work across these areas, together with an Integrated PhD that includes research training. The trade-off is substantial responsibility for defining a viable question, obtaining data and securing competitive funding. No particular dataset, experiment, second supervisor or personal award is promised.

The project is attractive if the applicant can turn a behavioural question into a feasible empirical study and secure the appropriate funding. Econometrics, experimental psychology or quantitative social science are relevant starting points; the decisive evidence is a research question and credible design rather than familiarity with “nudges” alone. China-based applicants have identifiable admission and funding routes, subject to individual qualification and English assessment. The earlier China-scholarship deadline is 29 November 2026, whereas current Management URSA requires application, supervisor interview and supervisor paperwork by 26 February 2027, 23:59 GMT. Prepare a focused proposal and clarify degree/funding route early enough for review and interview. These are funded competitions, not a guaranteed fully funded place. Management programme, URSA, Bath-CSC.

Research Problem and Doctoral Work

The advertisement permits a topic developed around behavioural economics, behavioural finance or behavioural science. Risk and time preferences, biases, bounded rationality, social preferences and choice architecture are possible directions. It does not specify a single intervention, hypothesis or dataset. A defensible doctorate would identify which mechanism explains a particular choice, how that mechanism is distinguished from alternatives, and whether the finding survives changes in population or measurement.

For example, proposed research could separate unpleasant anticipation from conventional risk aversion, test whether expectation errors reflect information or biased beliefs, or compare patience measured through choices with patience inferred from questionnaires. These are analyst-suggested angles informed by Dawson’s work, not advertised deliverables. A project need not involve genetic data merely because two recent papers do. Access to large panels, experimental participants or restricted variables requires a separate feasibility discussion.

The likely work combines literature-based theory, research design, data preparation, statistical estimation and interpretation. Experimental work would require ethics and a justified comparison; secondary-data work requires a measurement and identification strategy. A useful proposal specifies an outcome, sample, treatment or source of variation, rival explanations, missing-data handling and an achievable fallback. An observational association should remain labelled as such unless the assumptions supporting a causal interpretation withstand scrutiny.

The field’s practical value lies in explaining decisions and evaluating how policy or organisational design changes them. Quantitative behavioural research can support academic work, evaluation, consumer research and decision analysis. Those are skill-transfer possibilities, not measured employment probabilities. “Behavioural finance” here is a research area and provides no investment recommendation or guaranteed route into quantitative trading.

School, Programme and Field Context

The University of Bath is the degree institution; the School of Management is the academic home. This is doctoral study rather than an advertised salaried employment contract. The Integrated route awards an MRes and a PhD. Its first year contains 90 credits of research training and research work; all MRes assessments must be passed before progressing. The university describes most completions as four years, a minimum of three and normally a maximum of five. Registration limits and funded duration are separate.

The School groups research into Accounting, Finance and Law; Information, Decisions and Operations; Marketing, Business and Society; and Strategy and Organisation. Dawson’s profile places him in Marketing, Business and Society and the Centre for Business, Organisations and Society (CBOS). That setting can connect economic and psychological methods with organisational questions. The programme requires at least two supervisors, but a named secondary supervisor and their responsibilities are not established. Exact 2027 teaching units and workload should be confirmed rather than inferred from the current course outline.

For institutional context, Bath’s official pages show an overall QS World University Rankings 2027 top-150 claim. It is not a behavioural-economics or Management subject rank. The Integrated course reports 87% of School research as world-leading or internationally excellent but does not print a year beside that statement in the read text; it is a research-environment signal, not a 2027 ranking or an individual supervisory-quality measure. A precise current subject position was not verified.

The advertisement says an existing MRes can permit the standalone PhD route. An ordinary MSc should not automatically be treated as an MRes equivalent. Resolve the route before interpreting a four-year scholarship as sufficient for an individual registration plan. Programme, official institutional/qualification context, CBOS.

Supervisor and Research Environment

Dawson is Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science and is listed as accepting doctoral students. His profile combines behavioural and labour economics, with current work on expectations, emotion, cognition and preferences. This establishes substantive intellectual alignment; it does not establish supervision frequency, cohort size, completion record or guaranteed availability for every proposed topic.

He is principal investigator on the ESRC project The Uncertain Future and the Affective Imagination, active 15 January 2025–14 January 2028. The record names Waterloo as lead and Bath, Warwick and HEC Paris among partners. That network suggests relevant intellectual exchange. It does not identify this studentship as grant-funded, guarantee partner placements, or establish permission to use grant data. CBOS includes School faculty and doctoral researchers, plus internal and external affiliates; a dedicated experimental laboratory, participant budget and assigned collaborators for this student remain unconfirmed. Dawson profile, ESRC project record.

Three Recent Original Papers

Dawson, Communications Psychology, 2026: childhood environment and economic preferences. Selected publisher methods, results and limitations were read. ELSA provides a task sample of 624 and a survey sample of 5,881 people, with 11,521 person-wave observations. The paper combines educational-attainment polygenic scores, childhood-disadvantage measures and risk/time outcomes, using outcome-appropriate regression models. Risk associations differ across environments; the time-task interaction is not uniformly statistically significant. This matters for choosing measurements and testing heterogeneity rather than assuming a single stable preference. Between-family confounding, retrospective childhood recall, predictive-score measurement and ancestry restriction limit interpretation and transferability. These are associations, not proof of genetic causation. Dawson is the sole author; no separate contribution allocation was located in the selected publisher text. Supplements and code were not read or executed. Original paper.

Dawson and Samuel G. B. Johnson, Cognitive Science, 2026: dread, savoring, risk and time. Selected theoretical, methods, results and discussion sections were read. An anticipatory-utility model distinguishes emotional responses before an outcome from utility at consumption. Seventeen BHPS waves cover 13,969 people and 125,026 observations; mixed panel models, person-level means and estimated individual effects connect expectations and wellbeing. Stronger dread relative to savoring is associated with risk avoidance and delayed-gratification measures. The contribution is a bridge between explicit theory and imperfect psychological measurements. Estimated effects contain measurement error, panel relationships do not by themselves establish causality, and questionnaire gratification is not interchangeable with experimental discounting. Both authors are named; an individual CRediT allocation was not located, so Dawson’s exclusive responsibility for model or analysis is not asserted. Supplementary files and code were not read or run. Original paper.

Dawson, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2025: IQ, genes and miscalibrated expectations. The analysis is limited to selected passages from the publisher-provided article text hosted on ResearchGate; the APA-native full text was not reviewed. ELSA includes 3,946 people and 30,120 observations. Subjective survival expectations are benchmarked against population life tables with further adjustments. Poisson models and instrumental-variable Poisson/GMM link cognitive measures to absolute forecast error. Results indicate smaller miscalibration with higher cognitive measures, conditional on modelling and identification assumptions. A population benchmark is not each person’s eventual survival outcome; instrument validity, family-environment confounding and population stratification remain material. The study was not preregistered. Dawson’s visible CRediT statement lists lead conceptualisation, data curation, analysis, investigation, methodology and writing. Supplements/code were not read or executed. These findings must not be repurposed as genetic or cognitive ranking of applicants. Published article text.

Together, these papers indicate a supervisor willing to combine formal explanations with demanding empirical work. Their immediate preparation value is learning to distinguish an observed construct, an estimated latent measure and an identified effect. They are examples of recent research, not a syllabus or a commitment that the doctorate will reproduce them.

Funding, Application and Living Costs

Two Distinct Competitions

Route	Current coverage and limits	Controlling application node
Management URSA	Up to four years; Home or Overseas tuition, competitive maintenance and up to £1,000 research support annually. Personal maintenance amount is not specified in the read call.	26 February 2027, 23:59 UK GMT: final application, supervisor interview and supervisor-submitted interview paperwork must be complete.
Bath-CSC Joint Scholarship	Up to ten new awards across Bath for autumn 2027; international tuition, maintenance and China–UK travel for up to 48 months. No project-specific allocation or personal stipend is established.	Complete Bath application by 29 November 2026; the published scheme opened 12 October. Closing hour/timezone is not stated in the read scheme.

The October 2026 Management URSA terms specify up to four years; an older three-year/2026 description does not establish an automatic fourth-year shortfall. Equally, “up to four years” is not an individual award letter: confirm the MRes year, Overseas fees, maintenance start/end and any extensions. Its research support is not extra personal spending money.

For CSC, applicants must be Chinese citizens and permanent residents of the PRC at application; overseas Chinese students may qualify subject to CSC policy. Admission, English, CSC and immigration requirements remain separate. A person currently studying a PhD at Bath or elsewhere is ineligible for this funding. The scheme names Management among priority areas, particularly finance, operations research and corporate/social responsibility; other areas may also be considered. This does not guarantee selection of a behavioural proposal.

Bath expects successful candidates to receive an offer and nomination letter by mid-March 2027, followed by a CSC application through the Joint Scholarship Route. The Individual Route is excluded from this joint award. Bath nomination is not CSC approval. The detailed 2027 CSC guidance is to be published; do not borrow another university’s stipend or unverified overseas eligibility rule. Whether the Integrated MRes year is fully included needs written confirmation.

The exact advertisement also accepts self-funded or externally funded applicants. The university’s generic course dates of 30 June for international applicants and 31 July for Home applicants do not extend funding deadlines. Enter the exact title, intended supervisor and appropriate funding choice in the official application. Confirm the exact fields and required attachments with the programme before submitting. Central funding, URSA, Bath-CSC.

Fees and Twelve-Month Budget

For a new 2027/28 Overseas full-time student, the published Management PhD, Integrated PhD and MRes tuition is £25,200. After entry, annual increases are capped at 8%; that is a ceiling, not a promised annual increase. Home fees await the UKRI rate. An award covering Overseas tuition would address that fee liability, but personal coverage requires an award letter. 2027/28 fees.

Bath’s current postgraduate advice suggests approximately £1,300 monthly, or £15,600 over twelve months by arithmetic, excluding tuition. This generic estimate is not a guaranteed 2027 budget. The 2026/27 housing table supplies a useful check: some standard rooms cost £182–220 weekly over 51 weeks (£9,282–11,220), and an ensuite example costs £11,832. Prices, contracts and availability for autumn 2027 remain unknown. Higher-cost rooms can leave little room for other spending within the generic estimate. Avoid counting rent twice when constructing a personal budget. Money advice, dated housing prices.

Without a scholarship, first-year Overseas tuition plus that generic twelve-month living reference totals £40,800, before relocation, visa, IHS, dependants or inflation. With a scholarship, compare the actual maintenance schedule against twelve-month expenditure and upfront cash needs; no disposable-income figure is supportable while the stipend is unknown. Visa/IHS are expressly excluded by the advertisement.

UKVI’s outside-London maintenance evidence is currently £1,171 monthly for up to nine months (£10,539), distinct from a twelve-month Bath budget. Its 28-day holding rule and sponsorship evidence depend on circumstances. China is listed for differential documentary evidence, but funds may still be requested; this is not a waiver of financial sufficiency. The current standard visa fee shown is £558, and student IHS is £776 per visa year, with duration/rounding affecting the total. These rates require rechecking before a 2027 application. Visa finances, IHS.

Applicant Fit and Preparation

The advertisement recognises a first or upper-second-class bachelor’s equivalent and describes a master’s as advantageous. The Integrated course adds that candidates without a master’s are exceptional cases requiring an outstanding first-class degree, excellent CV and strong academic references. These statements must be reconciled for the individual route, rather than promising every 2:1 bachelor direct admission. Bath’s China PGR guidance prefers a first-class bachelor with research experience or a master’s containing research. Its separate taught-master percentage range is not a doctoral conversion threshold.

Relevant backgrounds include economics, finance, psychology and quantitative social science. What matters is evidence of statistical reasoning, measurement, coding or experimental design tied to a research problem. A purely professional finance CV without research evidence, or a proposal consisting only of a broad interest in nudging, will leave substantial preparation gaps. This is an assessment of evidence needs, not an admission prediction.

The School normally expects an original literature-based proposal; its own-topic guidance says few successful proposals are under 3,000 words, while supervisors may specify different requirements. Confirm the scope for this flexible advertisement. Include question, rationale, methodology, timetable and references. A compact reproducible analysis or experimental-design example can demonstrate competence without implying possession of restricted data.

Two references are required, at least one academic if recently studying. Management English is IELTS 7.0 overall/6.5 each component. TOEFL iBT tests before 21 January 2026 require 100 overall and 24 in each component; tests on or after that date require 5.0 overall and 4.5 in each component. Duolingo is excluded for both Management doctoral routes. Tests must remain valid within 24 months of course start; English-medium qualifications may support an individual exemption. Conditional admission before a test does not automatically satisfy funding: CSC requires English by 29 November 2026, with a specified exception for final-year UK higher-education students finishing in 2026/27. Qualifications, English policy.

The School encourages applicants from under-represented groups. If circumstances affected educational attainment, applicants may explain them in a short paragraph at the end of the personal statement. If disability is declared in the application, the Disability Service will contact the applicant to discuss support needs.

ATAS applies to specified sensitive subject codes, not every Chinese doctorate. China is not in the nationality-exemption list, but the actual offer’s CAH3 classification controls whether it is needed; a requirement for this Management project was not established. ATAS rules.

Next Actions and Questions to Verify

Before applying: resolve Integrated versus standalone admission and overseas qualification equivalence; obtain the supervisor’s proposal requirements and interview timetable; choose URSA or the earlier CSC route without confusing deadlines. Confirm English timing or a specific exemption, and arrange references. For CSC, verify current domestic/overseas eligibility once the 2027 guidance appears.

At interview: ask which behavioural mechanism the supervisor considers tractable, what data or recruitment is realistically available, and how ethics, measurement and identification risks would be managed. Establish the second supervisor’s role, meeting frequency and a fallback if restricted data or participants cannot be obtained.

Before accepting: obtain written award coverage for the MRes year, Overseas tuition, maintenance amount/payment months, research costs and any unfunded extension. For CSC, distinguish nomination from final approval and understand current obligations. Build a twelve-month housing/living budget, retain upfront visa/IHS funds, and confirm the offer’s immigration conditions. These unresolved points determine the financial and research commitment more directly than a headline institutional rank.

Evidence and Sources

The recruitment and policy context is dated 13 October 2026. The three original papers support the discussion within the selected-section limits stated above; complete full-text, supplementary-data and code-reproduction coverage is not established. The JPSP analysis uses publisher-provided published article text hosted on ResearchGate, with the native APA opening unavailable.

Programme and university

• Integrated Management PhD
• international qualifications and institutional context
• CBOS

Supervisor and collaboration

• Dawson
• ESRC project

Originals

• Communications Psychology 2026
• Cognitive Science 2026
• JPSP 2025 published text

Funding and admission

• central funding
• URSA
• Bath-CSC
• English
• 2027/28 fees

Costs and immigration

• postgraduate money advice
• 2026/27 accommodation
• visa finances
• IHS
• ATAS