PhD studentship available to research how museum collections help us understand domestic energy pasts and futures

Applications are open for a fully funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship with the Museum of the Home and the University of Leeds.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the PhD is titled ‘Intimate Energies: How do museum collections help us see the power of unrecognised actors (often women) in the history and future of energy demand?’.

This new studentship is a unique collaboration between the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies and School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability at the University of Leeds, and the Museum of the Home. 

The project will be jointly supervised by Professors Abigail Harrison Moore and Alice Owen from the University of Leeds, and Ailsa Hendry (Collections Manager) and Aurelien Enjalbert (Assistant Curator) at the Museum of the Home.

A townhouse in 1878, Museum of the Home. Photo by Jaron James. Image © Museum of the Home.

The climate crisis requires a comprehensive, interdisciplinary response, addressing all aspects of how we live. Such “grand challenge” research often ignores what drives the need for energy – behaviours that shape energy demand. Energy research remains largely technocratic, overlooking the truism that “buildings and objects don’t use energy, people do.” 

This project responds by framing energy demand as configured by the intimate relations and everyday practices involving household members, and people who offer trusted advice.

Using historical research in the Museum of the Home, it explores a new perspective on energy history by focusing on intimate encounters with energy in the household – cleaning, feeding, health and comfort – and on the agency of women in negotiating energy decisions.

The Museum of the Home collections, documenting the expansion of London and new (commuter) lifestyles that instigated different patterns of energy use, show that the promise was that new energies would make life easier – but for whom and under what conditions?

The project’s novelty lies in bringing insights from historically oriented humanities subject and museums into conversation with sustainability studies at the cutting edge of energy policy and practice in the UK, creating a conversation between energy history in the museum and the applied debate around energy futures.

A room upstairs in 1956. Photo by Jaron James. Image © Museum of the Home.

The successful PhD candidate will be supported to examine the role of women in the home – as energy users, energy mediators and energy-related professionals – as evidenced in Museum of the Home’s objects and collections documenting the expansion of London into suburbs and new (commuter) lifestyles.

They will explore how this expansion instigated different patterns of energy use and the impact of that expansion, such as the promise that electricity was all about making life easier.

Learning from Abigail Harrison Moore’s work with Leeds City Museum’s Preservative Party on Whose Power?, they will also think about the role of museums as spaces where conversations about energy pasts, presents and futures are generated through engagement with domestic objects and archives. They will connect this research to the way in which overlooked actors configure energy demand today, finding points of resonance for the research in contemporary policy making.

The successful postgraduate researcher will be supported to develop – and answer, through their research – a number of questions around how learning about a wider range of energy actors and actions in the home in the past help communities be active in energy decisions in the present and future.

Members of the Preservative Party plan for the podcast series at HELIX, University of Leeds. Photo by Krissie J Glover.

The successful student will be expected to spend time at both the University of Leeds and the Museum of the Home, as well as becoming part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK.

Read the full details about this PhD opportunity and find out how to apply.

The closing date for applications is 2pm on 1 May 2026.

Interviews will take place on 1 June 2026.

The AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) consortium will host an online webinar for prospective applicants on 13 April 2026 at 11:00 to provide an overview of the CDP funding scheme. Find out more and sign up for the webinar.

Please contact Professor Abigail Harrison Moore at a.l.moore@leeds.ac.uk to discuss this opportunity further.

Feature image

A display of vacuum cleaners, Museum of the Home. Image © Museum of the Home.