Bursaries for Women: PhDs and DBAs in the Centre for Business in Society

Financial wellbeing is about feeling financially secure and in financial control. Financial digital tools and services are promoted as effective ways for people to manage their money and build their financial wellbeing. For example, FinTech and innovation in open banking has enabled individuals to manage their everyday banking, apply for credit, manage their pension and build their credit score.  The UK has witnessed significant growth in the FinTech sector over the last decade and is now one of the largest adopters of FinTech with 71% of consumers estimated to use some form of FinTech.  However, greater understanding is needed of how consumers use FinTech to support their financial wellbeing and the consequences of such use.

As the UK cost of living crisis bites, this study aims to examine how digital ‘financial wellbeing’ tools are being promoted and used to support consumers. The wider consequences in terms of consumers’ wellbeing and digital vulnerability, are also considered.

Interesting questions include: where does the responsibility for protection from digital vulnerability lie? What are the responsibilities for consumers to manage and secure their personal data? What are the responsibilities for FinTech firms to protect their customers from exposure to digital harms and experience of digital vulnerability? In what ways are consumers using financial digital tools and services to support their wellbeing? What do consumers understand about the consequences of sharing their data in this way?  Has the growth of FinTech been at the expense of good consumer outcomes?

The study could use a qualitative or mixed methods approach. This might include qualitative data gathering from key stakeholders to examine the broader trends around FinTech and digital vulnerability. Qualitative and/or quantitative methods could then be used to explore consumers’ lived experience who use these digital tools, such as to log and track interactions, assess the financial outcomes, and consider the wider impact on consumers’ digital vulnerability and wellbeing.

Contact: Professor Sally Dibb, Sally.Dibb@coventry.ac.uk and Dr Lindsey Appleyard, Lindsey.Appleyard@coventry.ac.uk.

In the UK, the impact of the pandemic as well as the worsening cost-of-living crisis is placing a greater number of households in food poverty. The Food Foundation has indicated that 8.8% of households, 4.7 million adults, are food insecure and have insufficient access to food. The increasing rate of inflation and resulting rise in food prices is increasing the vulnerability of households, raising an already heightened demand for emergency food help. Community food organisations have dramatically expanded their food provisioning over the last 2 years to meet such demand. These organisation’s access to surplus food has been a vital factor in their ability to feed people in need. This ‘surplus’ is food donated from retail, manufacturing, and hospitality sectors due to a number of reasons, from instances where supply exceeds demand, to incorrect labelling, poor forecasting, or changes in consumer demand such as in cases of seasonal products, amongst a number of other reasons. A whole landscape of organisations has emerged to capture, process and redistribute such food. Whilst criticised as masking the true extent of food insecurity through charitable alleviation, or as being complicit in corporate ‘greenwashing’, nonetheless, this ‘second tier’ of the food system is increasingly being relied upon to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis facing households across the UK.

A tendency to frame food surpluses as ‘waste’ means that the conceptualisation of the processes of capturing, transporting, sorting, organising and repurposing surplus food remains underdeveloped. Beyond its framing as waste, more recent literatures examine the alternative ways through which surplus becomes valued. Concepts such as Blake’s ‘food ladders’, for example, distinguish surplus as a material which is valued as a social connector, which makes ‘doing’ community possible. How best then to conceptualise this material resource whose use is proliferating?

Responding to this research topic will contribute towards a number of exciting fields of scholarship; advancing understandings of the circular economy, scholarship on the diverse economy, surplus supply chain conceptualisation and community food system research. In order to understand its future resilience, there is a critical need for further conceptual development around the role and value of surplus. What is the nature of this surplus food? How is it valued and how do these values transition? Investigating this topic will provide a better understanding of how and why these activities have become such an integral solution to food poverty, food waste reduction, and sustainable production and consumption agendas. Such knowledge will inform future developments in the sector and will have implications for government food policy at local, regional, and national level.

Contact: Dr David Bek, David.Bek@coventry.ac.uk.

A critical intervention in the fight against climate change is the global effort to achieve ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2050. Achieving this ambitious objective will require emissions from households and businesses to be reduced through the adoption of new technologies, business models and behaviours. To ensure that this transition is sustainable, it is imperative that adequate solutions for all communities are considered, particularly those that have been overlooked within current policy debates. Globally, rural regions face a suite of enduring challenges driven by demographics, digital exclusion, and lack of services and infrastructure, which existing policy has generally failed to address. So how can these systemic issues be addressed?

New entrepreneurial start-ups and existing small and medium sized companies (SMEs) can be the drivers of change in rural areas to achieve net zero targets as framed by the unique necessities of these spaces. This project aims to explore how stakeholders within these spaces can take advantage of the opportunities afforded by net zero as well as to assess what particular barriers are likely to be associated with this transformation. Given this need, the aim of this study is to investigate the opportunities and challenges for rural SMEs and entrepreneurial start-ups in adopting emerging green and sustainable technologies and routines and how digitalisation can facilitate/enhance this process.

Understanding how communities and businesses in these spaces can utilise emergent green technologies is particularly important as this can add both economic and social value to areas facing structural disadvantages. For instance, these disadvantages include challenges related to demographics, travel distances and service provision, limiting the ability of businesses to readily access labour and logistical networks. Can new ‘green’ solutions help businesses and communities in these spaces overcome some of the enduring issues they face? What societal benefits may emerge? This research may include, for example, assessing how new transport technologies and energy sources can be utilised by firms as part of their routines to secure better access to customers, enter new markets and improve competitiveness. Such insights will contribute to the ongoing debates concerning sustainability and socio-technical transitions. They will also provide important policy recommendations, suggesting how national and local policy may need to evolve in order to ensure greater ‘spatial fairness’.

Contact: Dr Andrew Jones, Andrew.Jones@coventry.ac.uk.

These Terms and Conditions shall apply to all students enrolled as a student with Coventry University who have been awarded the Bursary for Women in CBiS.

A student who successfully secures support under this bursary scheme will receive a waiver for their fees up to £13,788 (equivalent to three years’ full-time or six years’ part-time home fees), subject to these terms and conditions and any further terms and conditions you receive from the University’s finance team. 

In order to qualify for a bursary, you must meet the eligibility criteria and requirements set out in the Guidance Notes and have completed the online PhD programme application form. The awarding of the bursary is a competitive process and the bursaries shall be awarded at the University’s sole discretion.

Changes to study. If you change to another degree programme your bursary may be withdrawn and you may be required to repay sums to the University.

Monitoring of attendance. You must successfully enrol at the start of the PhD degree programme and maintain your attendance throughout, including meeting assessment deadlines and engaging in the course delivery. Your attendance may be monitored and reported.

Suspensions and withdrawal from studies. If you are the subject of any investigation (to include criminal) or form of proceedings (to include disciplinary or fitness to study proceedings), this will be considered by the University on a case by case basis, and the University will have full discretion to determine whether or not the you should continue to receive the bursary or when such support shall be withdrawn, and you may be required to repay sums to the University.

The bursary may need to be repaid to the University should you suspend, withdraw from studies, transfer to a non-eligible programme, or no longer meet the eligibility criteria of the bursary for any other reason.

The bursaries outlined herein are for September 2023 and January 2024 entry only. If you defer or withdraw and restart, any bursary already offered will become void. If eligible, you may apply for a bursary for a subsequent entry, but this will be subject to the terms of those bursaries then in force. The application would then be considered along with any other applications for bursaries for that entry point, and there is no guarantee of outcome.

Data Protection

If you are currently enrolled in a course at Coventry University, you can find more information on the processing of your data in the Students Privacy Notice. If you are applying to the course alongside this application, you can find this information in the Prospective Students and Applicants Privacy Notice.

These Terms and Conditions shall apply to all students enrolled as a student with Coventry University who have been awarded the DBA Women in Leadership Bursary.

A student who successfully secures support under this bursary scheme will receive a waiver for their first year’s fee currently valued at £13,700, subject to these terms and conditions and any further terms and conditions you receive from the University’s finance team. 

In order to qualify for a bursary, you must meet the eligibility criteria and requirements set out in the Guidance Notes and have completed the online DBA programme application form. The awarding of the bursary is a competitive process and the bursaries shall be awarded at the University’s sole discretion.

Changes to study. If you change to another degree programme your bursary may be withdrawn and you may be required to repay sums to the University.

Data Protection

If you are currently enrolled in a course at Coventry University, you can find more information on the processing of your data in the Students Privacy Notice. If you are applying to the course alongside this application, you can find this information in the Prospective Students and Applicants Privacy Notice.