PhD in Behaviour Change

As we age, changes in brain health occur; some reflect ageing and some reflect diseases leading to dementia. The project aims to transform knowledge about lifestyles and behaviours that promote and protect brain health into action by developing interventions that embed behaviour change principles and harness new technologies to deliver them at scale. The School of Social Sciences at Heriot-Watt University is offering a full-time PhD studentship to start in May or September 2026 at the Edinburgh campus. The studentship includes a tuition fee waiver and an annual stipend set at £20,789 for 2025-26 and has a duration of 3.5 years. The proposed project, in collaboration with an industry partner, will adapt an interactive image-based platform (initially developed to support people living with dementia) for older adults living in the community with no current cognitive impairment, pivoting toward behaviour change and risk reduction. The aim is to consider how individualised AI-generated imagery can be used to promote behaviour change for brain health.