Translating Climate Risk into Action: An Agentic AI Decision-Support System

Eligibility: UK/International (including EU) graduates with the required entry requirements

Duration: Full-Time – between three and three and a half years fixed term

Application deadline: 15th April 2026

Interview date: Will be confirmed to shortlisted candidates

Start date: May 2026

For further details contact: Associate Professor Jonathan Eden

Introduction

This PhD project is part of the Cotutelle arrangement between Coventry University, UK and Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. The supervision team will be drawn from the two universities. This project will start at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

Climate adaptation planning requires not only robust scientific data but also effective communication tools that help decision-makers navigate uncertainty, trade-offs, and institutional constraints. Existing planning approaches often struggle to translate climate data into practical, context-sensitive insights - particularly in agricultural and peri-urban landscapes, where environmental, infrastructural, and governance dynamics intersect in complex ways.

Project details

This exciting PhD project will develop a novel agentic AI system to generate structured, scenario-based climate adaptation narratives tailored to the needs of diverse stakeholders, and particularly decision-makers. These narratives will help bridge the gap between complex datasets and real-world planning decisions by making climate risks, strategic trade-offs, and policy constraints more intelligible and actionable. The project will focus on delivering an AI system that can generate institutionally aware storylines that are regionally grounded and dynamically responsive to the roles, responsibilities and priorities of different decision-makers.

The project will address the following key questions:

How can agentic AI be designed to generate structured climate adaptation narratives that align with regional environmental priorities and planning constraints?
What environmental, socio-political and scenario-based inputs are required to support meaningful, context-aware narrative generation?
How do different stakeholder groups (e.g., planners, policy-makers, land managers) interpret, interact with, and respond to AI-generated adaptation storylines?
What forms of agentic behaviour and explainability are most effective in supporting user trust and engagement with AI-generated planning narratives?

Project supervision will be led by Associate Prof. Robert Faggian (Deakin University) and Associate Prof. Jonathan Eden (Coventry University), and supported by Dr. Bahareh Nakisa (Deakin University) and Prof. Matthew England (Coventry University).

Funding

Tuition fees and bursary

Benefits

The successful candidate will receive comprehensive research training including technical, personal and professional skills. All researchers at Coventry University (from PhD to Professor) are part of the Doctoral and Researcher College, which provides support with high-quality training and career development activities.

This is an exciting opportunity to study a PhD as part of a cotutelle arrangement between Coventry University, UK and Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. The PhD Student will graduate with two PhDs, one from Deakin University and one from Coventry University, each of which recognises that the program was carried out as part of a jointly supervised doctoral program.

Candidate specification

Applicants must meet the admission and scholarship criteria for both Coventry University and Deakin University for entry to the cotutelle programme.

Applicants should have graduated within the top 15% of their undergraduate cohort. This might include a high 2:1 in a relevant discipline/subject area with a minimum 70% mark (80% for Australian graduates) in the project element or equivalent with a minimum 70% overall module average (80% for Australian graduates).
A Bachelor's degree in a relevant field requiring at least four years of full-time study, and which normally includes a research component which is equivalent to at least 25% of a year’s full-time study in the fourth year, with achievement of a grade for the project equivalent to a H1 standard or 80%.

a Masters degree, with a significant research component, in a relevant subject area, with overall mark at minimum Distinction.
In addition, the mark for the Masters thesis (or equivalent) must be a minimum of 80%.
Please note that where a candidate has 70-79% and can provide evidence of research experience to meet equivalency to the minimum first-class honours equivalent (80%+) additional evidence can be submitted and may include independently peer-reviewed publications, research-related awards or prizes and/or professional reports.
Language proficiency (IELTS overall minimum score of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component).

The potential to engage in innovative research and to complete the PhD within a prescribed period of study.

Additional Requirements

Experience in machine learning, natural language generation, reinforcement learning, agentic AI, or related AI methods.
Strong programming skills and confidence working with environmental or planning related datasets.
Interest in climate adaptation, environmental decision support, human-AI interaction, or planning governance.
Willingness to work with stakeholders (e.g., planners, councils, land managers) and participate in human-centred evaluation activities.

How to apply

To find out more about the project, please contact Associate Professor Jonathan Eden

All applications require full supporting documentation, a covering letter, plus a 2000-word supporting statement showing how the applicant’s expertise and interests are relevant to the project.

Apply to Coventry University