PhD opportunities
One Basin CRC’s PhD program provides unprecedented leadership development and extensive industry networking opportunities, and the chance to establish a deep understanding of your chosen field.
Develop world-leading skills in helping communities tackle climate change and accelerate rural innovation through training from internationally renowned experts, while working with our industry partners in the iconic Murray-Darling Basin on real-world problems.
Our PhD graduates will be the future leaders in basin research and application. The One Basin CRC offers attractive PhD packages in a broad range of disciplinary fields and across multiple universities in Australia including:
- Australian National University
- Charles Sturt University
- Flinders University
- The University of Adelaide
- The University of Melbourne
- The University of Sydney.
You can view current opportunities open for applications below.
Please note that where a PhD opportunity is marked ‘scholarship awarded’, an offer has already been made to a candidate. However, if you are interested in the topic, we encourage you to submit an expression of interest, in case further opportunities in the area become available.
Our PhD program will give you the professional skills and networks to accelerate your career in research or practice across the water, agriculture or environmental sectors.
Key features of the One Basin CRC PhD program include:
- A 3.5 year scholarship with the option of a 6-month funded internship with an industry partner or equivalent part-time employment.
- A flexible funding package including a stipend of as much as $56,000 pa* and generous travel and operational support. Additional income from working part-time with industry partners and further scholarships may be available.
- The PhD program seeks to achieve gender balance and attract candidates from all walks of life, with Australians of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander heritage particularly encouraged to apply.
- Opportunities for travel (including the possibility of international conferences), development and engagement with a strong research network that is being developed through the 10-year CRC.
- Each candidate will be based for the majority of their time in one of the following research hubs: Loxton (South Australia), Mildura (Victoria), Griffith (NSW) and Goondiwindi (Queensland) with associated node in Narrabri (NSW) in order to facilitate place-based research and interactions with industry partners.
*This is dependent on the host university policies, other available co-funding, and candidature experience and background. Candidates will receive a minimum stipend of $35,000 pa and a further minimum $20,500 (total) in operational funding. The exact allocation of the funding package between the stipend and support activities (such as conferences, travel to and from regional hubs) will be agreed to by the host university, PhD student and the 1BCRC. Applicants must be intending to apply for, and be highly competitive for, a Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend (or an equivalent scholarship). The student will enter the PhD program in 2024 and enrol on a full-time basis.
Current PhD opportunities
University of Adelaide
Opportunities and challenges for using brackish groundwater to increase agricultural productivity and resilience in the Murray-Darling Basin
This project will develop novel, decision-centric approaches to support end users with the identification of opportunities in the Murray-Darling Basin with the highest potential for utilising brackish groundwater, as well as any associated challenges.
Flinders University
Hydrogeological opportunities and constraints of the groundwater resource across the Murray-Darling Basin
This project will contribute to a basin-wide understanding of the groundwater resource and its suitability to support current industry, agriculture and local communities as well as their potential future expansion within the Basin.
Australian National University
Understanding the potential for achieving multiple benefits through water system operations
This project will develop case studies to explore how multiple benefits can be identified, valued and achieved through rethinking the outcomes of water management and its processes, considering aspects of space, time and delivery to diverse values.
Australian National University
How can water assessment tools be inclusive of First Nations’ values and knowledge?
This research will explore ways that water assessment tools can be more inclusive of First Nations’ values and knowledge. This will involve an examination of how water-related problems are framed differently by the different cultures, and how water assessment tools can be transformed to capture different ways of seeing and knowing.
The University of Adelaide
Harvest foresighting: Unifying on- and off-farm insights to improve harvest decisions under a changing climate
This project will apply innovative numerical techniques (e.g. robust optimisation, bottom-
up stress-testing) to support harvest planning and scheduling decisions, considering the interaction between on- and off-farm factors and how these interactions might change into the future.
Charles Sturt University
Indigenous data sovereignty, Indigenous rights, and Indigenous governance in Murray-Darling Basin water management
This PhD project will evaluate existing protocols and practices of Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous governance in relation to First Nation knowledges involving water management practices.
Australian National University
Optimal cross-scale irrigation operation in the era of sensor networks, data science, and automation (scholarship awarded)
This project aims to forge an advanced framework uniting data science, machine learning, simulation, multi-objective optimization, and uncertainty-based decision making.
Australian National University
Economic analysis of water banking and managed aquifer recharge as innovations for enhancing and regulating water supply (scholarship awarded)
This PhD project would deve lop methodology and compile data for assessing the economic benefits and costs of water banking and MAR and alternative sources of water, taking account of the distribution of benefits and costs, and risks and uncertainty.
Charles Sturt University
Examining the potential of social marketing within community wealth-building programs as a pathway towards transformative change in rural communities in the Murray-Darling Basin (scholarship awarded)
The aim of this project is to evaluate selected Community Wealth-Building Programs (CWBPs) and social marketing change strategies that organisations could and do use, especially in combination, to engage local communities in transformative thinking.
Charles Sturt University
Financing and incentivising ecosystem services to future-proof Basin producers against climate change (scholarship awarded)
This project will focus on vineyards in the Griffith area as (i) a stakeholder group that is currently facing extreme challenges in terms of biophysical and socioeconomic viability and sustainability, and (ii) a ‘case study’ that will yield rigorous and high utility insights that can be rapidly applied across other industries and One Basin CRC Hub regions.
Flinders University
Characterisation of the inorganic and microbial water quality envelope for successful water banking in the Murray-Darling Basin for agriculture, town water supply and environmental benefit (scholarship awarded)
After more than a decade since the end of the millennium drought, within the MDB water security remains an unresolved challenge for rural communities, irrigators, and the sustainability of water-sensitive ecosystems. One option to enhance water supply security is through water banking, where basin aquifers are recharged during periods of surface water surplus for later use via managed aquifer recharge (MAR).
The University of Sydney
Multilevel network approaches to incentivise sustainable adaptation in the Murray-Darling Basin (scholarship awarded)
The aim of the PhD project is the explore ways to leverage landholder and institutional networks to better target intervention programs and policies towards farmers’ adaptation to future in the Basin with less water.