Business and law PhD

The School of Business and Law offers PhD students a research environment focused on the full range of disciplines associated with contemporary business structures and practices.

Our research centre, the Centre for Change, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management (CENTRIM) brings together academic expertise with a long, successful history in business development through international partnerships and consultancies.

Working with partners in industry, academia and government, we strive to produce groundbreaking concepts to explain, harness and improve innovation, entrepreneurship and change management.

Our PhD students are supervised across sets of specialities including:

Economics / finance
Innovation studies
Law
Management studies
Marketing

As a PhD student you will join a department whose work tackles the complex problems facing economies, businesses, and wider society. We are committed to academic research of international excellence, providing scientific evidence and generating new insights into the processes of enterprising and managing innovation and change.

We generate data to test new theories and transfer our findings into boardrooms and beyond. Our research follows high academic standards and is published in international peer-reviewed academic conferences and journals.

We welcome students with business experience that can further enhance our contact with and direct relevance to industry and enterprise. It is also possible to take the PhD directly after undergraduate study and capitalise on academic momentum.

Our doctoral graduates work in academia, consultancy and in the business world internationally.

Apply to 'business and law' in the portal

Key information

As a Business and Law PhD student at Brighton, you will

attend and present at regular seminar sessions with guests from across the world of business research.
benefit from a supervisory team comprising 2-3 members of academic staff. Depending on your research specialism you may also have an additional supervisor from another school, another research institution, or an external partner from government or industry.
be provided with desk space and access to a desktop PC, either in one of the postgraduate offices on the 6th  floor of the award-winning Cockcroft Building, or within the adjacent Huxley Building.
benefit from access to a range of electronic resources via the University’s Online Library, as well as to the physical book and journal collections housed within the Aldrich Library and other campus libraries.

Academic Environment

The Centre for Change, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management (CENTRIM) provides an opportunity for all postgraduate students to present ‘work in progress’ and network with other researchers. We believe that this interdisciplinary focus provides our students with an appreciation of real-world problems and ensures that they are highly employable. In addition, the Brighton Business School hosts regular events to bring representatives of international business to speak at the University, including law, finance and marketing.

The Brighton Doctoral College offer a training programme for postgraduate researchers, covering research methods and transferable (including employability) skills. Attendance at appropriate workshops within this programme is encouraged, as is contribution to the Schools’ various seminar series. Academic and technical staff also provide more subject-specific training.

Researchers within the School are engaged in work across a wide range of topic areas, and thus your PhD research could be based on interdisciplinary supervision across the School.

Some of our supervisors

Dr Veronique Boulocher-Passet

My main research and supervisory interests are internationalization of start-ups in a digital world, demarketing and sustainability marketing strategies, cross-cultural consumer behaviour, teaching case study method and marketing education.

Dr Jose Christian

Jose supervises PhD students in the following areas: Open innovation, digital entrepreneurship, emerging digital technologies, open source innovation, online communities, and user innovation.Jose has an interest to supervise PhD students focusing on alternative forms of digital innovation. Of particular interest are those that explore the evolution of digital technologies and their development and propagation through informal innovation group.

Dr Clare Forder

I'm interested in supervising students who are exploring areas of employability, the use of LinkedIn (and LinkedIn Learning), as well the implementation of wellbeing in HE curricula. I am also particularly interested in qualitative research methods, including phenomenography and Grounded Theory.

Dr Adam Jones

I am interested in supervising PhD students interested in sustainability related to tourism, marketing, and corporate social responsibility. I am also interested in those wanting to research behaviour change, especially related to the environmental crisis. Recently completed research and publications include those concerning behaviour change and travel demand management, destination planning and management and information overload on the internet. I specifically welcome projects that adopt innovative qualitative methodological approaches to creating new knowledge.

I am supervising students researching tourism and the circular economy, monitoring and evaluation of tourism development, art and the tourism economy and behaviour change as a result of environmental exposure

Dr Tim Laing

I currently supervise students in the fields of renewable energy, sustainable production and technology innovation. I am interested in supervising students in the fields of environmental economics, natural resource management, the extractive industries and the material implications of low-carbon development.

Gillian Keenan

Gillian has experience supervising graduate and post-graduate students in Human Resouces related subjects. She is able to supervise students on similiar projects.

Dr Eugenia Markova

I am particularly interested in the economic and social aspects of labour migration, focusing on three areas: undocumented migration; precarious and atypical forms of employment; and, migration, remittances and regional development.

Quasirat Hasnat, 'An exploration of employee engagement and employee commitment in the London hotels: the perspectives of migrant housekeeping workers and their managers.' PhD awarded in February 2022 (lead supervisor)
Vlora Berbatovci-Sojeva, 'The impact of employment skills support and inequalities at work on incentives to migrate: A case study of Kosovo', PhD awarded in February 2022 (external supervisor).
Christopher Monks,' Stakeholder involvement in the selection of biodiversity - focused voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards within the food/agri-business industry'. PhD awarded in July 2019 (lead supervisor)
George Szamuely, PhD by Prior Output,'Bombs for Peace: the war in Yugoslavia'. PhD awarded in December 2016 (lead supervisor)
Eda Gemi, 'Socio-economic Integration of Immigrants in Greece: The Case of the Greater Athens Area'. PhD awarded in July 2015 (lead supervisor)
Maria Elfani, ‘The Impact of the National Minimum Wage on the Non-Wage Benefits of Labour Migrants – Evidence from the UK’. PhD awarded in July 2014 (lead supervisor)

Dr Nadia Lonsdale

I am interested in supervising PhD candidates who are drawn to topics of corporate environmental sustainability practices in developing countries, inclusive marketing, and corporate social responsibility. I am also interested in those wanting to explore institutional paradoxes of sustainability, especially in the cultural and environmental contexts.

I welcome projects that would like to explore innovative qualitative and mixed methodological approaches.

Dr Rodrigo Lucena De Mello

I welcome students' research projects in the following areas: Consumer psychology and behaviour; Customer relationship marketing; Marketing for families; Gender and sexuality in marketing

Dr Sushil Mohan

Sushil is an active PhD supervisor and welcomes students that wish to work in the areas of trade and international development such as trade policy, trade barriers, global commodity markets, environmental economics, migration, FDI, ethical trading (e.g. Fairtrade, organics, CSR, social enterprises), SMEs and international macroeconomics.

He has a rich experience in the PhD process and helping students in successful completion of PhD and pursuing their career goals. His most recent and current PhD researchers include topics in the area of trade and economic growth, environment, global oil market, Islamic business, CSR, exchange rate regimes, and areas related to international development.

Dr Alex Newbury

My most recent doctoral student successfully passed her viva in January 2019. Her doctorate assesses the impact of cuts to Legal Aid on the administration of immigration law and asylum cases.

I am now supervising a student examining issues around anonymity for both complainants and defendants in rape trials.

I would be interested in supervising other doctoral students with interests in Legal Aid, or in research areas covering crime, criminal justice, restorative justice, or youth offending.

Dr Adaeze Okoye

She is currently supervising three PhD students.

She would like to hear from potential postgraduate students interested in legal corporate accountability, corporate social responsibility, dispute resolution systems and sustainable development areas.

Dr Ceylan Onay Sahin

I would like to supervise students on Fintech, ICOs, and open banking/open finance. I am very interested in the productivity gains of open banking, new business models in fintech and empirically measuring the impact of fintech on sustainability (with respect to ESG), financial inclusion and access to finance for SMEs.

Dr Avanti Pinto

I am interested to supervise projects in the area of public economics and international economics, specifically environmental policies/ externalities/ international cooperation on environment and trade issues.

Dr Stefan Speckesser

I am interested to supervise students with research topics in welfare policies, education and the labour market, and effectiveness of policy and programmes. Here, I have a specific interest in computationally efficient algorithms to improve econometric designs, which improve robustness of applied econometric analysis. Related to this is the use of innovative, large data sources (“Big Data”) in econometrics, where I can support students gaining proficiency using relevant methodical and technical approaches.

For further information on supervisory staff including cross-disciplinary options, please visit research staff on our research website.

Making an application

You will apply to the University of Brighton through our online application portal. When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the University of Brighton staff. We recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Fees and funding

Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2023–24

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

MPhil/PhD
	Full-time	Part-time
UK	£4,712	£2,356
International (including EU)	£15,300	N/A
International students registered in the School of Humanities and Social Science or in the School of Business and Law	from £13,900	N/A

PhD by Publication
Full-time	Part-time
N/A	£2,356

Contact Brighton Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the University of Brighton we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the Brighton Doctoral College page.

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.