PhD Studentship: SCALE-Decode: Unlocking Growth Workflows in UK SMEs

Overview

The University of Exeter Department of Management offers a PhD studentship titled SCALE-Decode: Unlocking Growth Workflows in UK SMEs. Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the project examines how responsible artificial intelligence can uncover growth workflows, identify bottlenecks, and support managerial decision-making within small and medium-sized enterprises in the United Kingdom.

The research spans four work packages over the course of the program. The initial phase involves mapping scale-up workflows through interviews, walkthroughs, diaries, and process mining to produce a framework, process maps, and a bottleneck taxonomy. The second phase builds the SCALE-Decode secure artificial intelligence system, utilizing knowledge graphs and components that reconstruct workflows, diagnose constraints, and generate action plans with human oversight. The third phase evaluates feasibility and implementation through longitudinal field studies comparing artificial intelligence-assisted diagnosis with traditional approaches. The final phase integrates findings into academic papers, adviser toolkits, sector templates, and policy briefs.

What you get

The studentship provides funding that covers tuition fees along with a stipend of £21,805 per annum for the 2026/7 period.

Key dates

The closing date for applications is 2026-12-08.