The Brahmal Institute invites applications for the October 2026 PhD Cohort Programme in Sustainable Aviation. This pioneering doctoral programme is dedicated to addressing one of the most urgent global challenges — transforming aviation into a truly sustainable sector. The Institute provides a unique interdisciplinary environment for visionary researchers eager to challenge convention, disrupt existing systems, and reimagine the future of air transport.
Building on Imperial College’s world-leading expertise and global partnerships, the programme fosters blue-sky thinking and bold innovation. Candidates will join a vibrant research community committed to developing transformative ideas that could redefine aviation and drive meaningful environmental change across the sector.
Objectives
The projects will each pursue disruptive and transformative research to advance the sustainability of aviation. Each will investigate or develop technologies or policies with the potential to create a sector visibly different from today’s, enabling radical change beyond incremental efficiency gains. Projects will reduce environmental impact beyond fuel efficiency, generate actionable insights for system-wide transformation, and provide a foundation for real-world implementation of sustainable solutions across aircraft design, operations, and policy. Students will apply to predefined, cross-disciplinary projects that embody this vision of bold, evidence-based innovation for a greener aviation future. Details below.
Available Projects
- Wing-engine integration for advanced aircraft configurations to reduce fuel consumption and noise
- Sustainability-focused agent-based modelling for aircraft design and manufacturing
- Topology Optimised Fuel Cells for Sustainable Aviation
- Smart & Adaptive Formation Flight via Collective Intelligence
- Next-Generation Fuels for Net-Zero Aviation
- Multifunctional Design of Structural Power Composites for Sustainable Aviation
- Navigating the SAF revolution: multifaceted multiagent modelling for reliable market forecasts and sustainable futures
- Dynamic reconfigurable mission planning: toward new paradigms for safe and sustainable air-operations
- Airline Responses to Disruptive Policy Shocks: Are We Transitioning Towards Sustainable Aviation?
TITLE: Wing-engine integration for advanced aircraft configurations to reduce fuel consumption and noise
DEPARTMENT(S): Department of Aeronautics and Deptartment of Mechanical Engineering
SUPERVISORS: Dr. Rhea Liem and Prof. Aimee Morgans
Efficiently designing wing-engine integration can reduce fuel consumption and noise impact, which is well aligned with sustainable aviation directives. The strong correlation between aerodynamics and aeroacoustics necessitates an appropriate multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO) strategy to solve this problem, along with prudent use of advanced computational techniques and high-fidelity physics-based models.
TITLE: Sustainability-focused agent-based modelling for aircraft design and manufacturing
DEPARTMENT(S): Department of Aeronautics
SUPERVISORS: Prof. Rob Hewson, Dr. Ajit Panesar, Dr. Thulasi Mylvaganam
This PhD will develop a sustainability-embodied agent-based framework that makes manufacturing flexibility a first-class design variable at wing scale. Agents will represent subsystems, resources, and suppliers with capacity and lead-time uncertainty. Designs will be parameterised to admit multiple certified manufacturing routes, with explicit substitution rules and process envelopes. The project will be mainly computational, and experience of Python would be beneficial but not essential.
TITLE: Topology Optimised Fuel Cells for Sustainable Aviation
DEPARTMENT(S): Department of Aeronautics
SUPERVISORS: Dr. Ajit Panesar, Prof. Spencer Sherwin
This project aims to create an advanced computational design tool by integrating optimisation techniques, solid/fluid mechanics, electrochemistry, and surrogate modelling to enable next-generation fuel cell architectures that support the vision of sustainable aviation. It will efficiently resolve conflicting system requirements, multiscale phenomena, and stringent performance constraints through innovative, physics-informed strategies.
TITLE: Smart & Adaptive Formation Flight via Collective Intelligence
DEPARTMENT(S): Department of Aeronautics
SUPERVISORS: Dr. Georgios Rigas and Dr. Rhea Liem
We will develop a smart, adaptive, and dynamic formation flight to optimise energy consumption in multi-vehicle air transport, by combining advanced computational science (real-time reinforcement learning control, digital-twin paradigm) and wind-tunnel experiments. This will establish new operating principles where aircraft and drones fly collectively rather than individually for emission reduction.
TITLE: Next-Generation Fuels for Net-Zero Aviation
DEPARTMENT(S): Department of Mechanical Engineering, Deptartment of Aeronautics, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
SUPERVISORS: Dr. Stelios Rigopoulos, Dr. Sebastian Eastham, Prof. Marc Stettler
Contrails are the biggest climate impact of aviation. In this project, we will employ advanced modelling methods to investigate the ice formation mechanism of novel fuels and integrate these into global scale contrail modelling, thus establishing whether there might exist disruptive fuels with potential to profoundly change aviation’s climate impacts.
TITLE: Multifunctional Design of Structural Power Composites for Sustainable Aviation
DEPARTMENT(S): Department of Aeronautics. Deptartment of Chemistry
SUPERVISORS: Prof. Emile Greenhalgh, Prof. Milo Shaffer Dr. Ajit Panesar
This project focusses on structural power composites: a disruptive technology which fuses structural lightweighting with energy storage. By reducing, or even dispensing, with the need for dedicated batteries, the impact of these materials will be profound, leading to huge weight savings, localisation of power sources and completely new aircraft configurations.
TITLE: Navigating the SAF revolution: multifaceted multiagent modelling for reliable market forecasts and sustainable futures
DEPARTMENT(S): The Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Department of Aeronautics
SUPERVISORS: Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Prof. Laura Mainini, Dr. Hayriye Pehlivan Solak
This project develops an AI-enabled multi-agent optimisation framework to forecast global sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) adoption. Integrating techno-economic, market, and policy data, it will model how carbon pricing, mandates, and trading schemes influence fleet transitions, providing actionable insights for policymakers and industry to accelerate SAF deployment cost-effectively.
TITLE: Dynamic reconfigurable mission planning: toward new paradigms for safe and sustainable air-operations
DEPARTMENT(S): Department of Aeronautics
SUPERVISORS: Prof. Laura Mainini and Dr. Sophie Armanini
The integration of green technologies on future aircraft is challenged by the time and effort required to characterize safety and reliability of new solutions to the high standards demanded by air-operations. To accelerate the sustainability journey, this project develops dynamic reconfigurable mission planning capabilities, new paradigms for reliability and readiness of air-vehicles based on continuous and proactive adaptation of their configuration and mission operations in response to contingencies
TITLE: Airline Responses to Disruptive Policy Shocks: Are We Transitioning Towards Sustainable Aviation?
DEPARTMENT(S): Business School and Department of Aeronautics
SUPERVISORS: Dr. Laure de Preux and Dr. Sebastian Eastham
This project investigates the impacts of the EU Emissions Trading System on Europe’s aviation sector. It examines how carbon pricing influences air traffic, emissions, and air quality, as well as the societal and economic distribution of its effects. Using interdisciplinary methods, it aims to inform future carbon market policy design.
Application Deadline
January 19th, 2026
General Information
Reference Number: AE0072
Status: We are currently accepting applications for our October 2026 Cohort.
Duration: 3.5 years
Funding and Fees: Full coverage of tuition fees, a generous travel budget, and an annual tax-free stipend of £21,237.
Eligibility
- Having obtained or expect to obtain a 1st class honours Master’s (or higher) degree in Aerospace Engineering or allied disciplines such as Computational Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, or Physics.
- Ability to develop and apply new concepts while prioritising work in response to deadlines.
- Creative approach to problem-solving.
- Ability to organise own work with minimal supervision.
- Excellent background in numerical methods, and scientific computing.
- Excellent verbal and written technical communication skills and the ability to write clearly and succinctly for publication
- Demonstrated understanding of and passion for sustainability.
- We are accepting applications from both Home and International students.
Imperial is committed to equality and valuing diversity. We are an Athena SWAN Silver Award winner, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, a Disability Confident Employer and are working in partnership with GIRES to promote respect for trans people.
How to apply
- Submit your application at: Application process | Study | Imperial College London. You will need to include the reference (AE0072) and address your application to The Brahmal Vasudevan Institute. When making your application, please type ‘Aeronautics Research (PhD)’ into the programme search bar.
- When applying, please use "Doctoral Programme in Sustainable Aviation “ as the proposed topic, “AE0072” as the supervisor and "Brahmal Institute" as the group.
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In lieu of a research statement, attach a one page (A4) letter of interest to your application that contains the following information:
- Your ranked preference (top 3) of DPSA projects (as shown above). Please indicate these clearly at the top of the page.
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Answers to the following two questions (maximum 200 words each):
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What steps have you taken, and what future ones will you pursue, to become a leader in sustainability?
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Why does your background and experience make you a good fit for the Doctoral Programme in Sustainable Aviation (DPSA)?
Further Information
To learn more about Imperial College, please visit the Imperial College Study page. For further inquiries, contact us at brahmal-institute@imperial.ac.uk.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I contact potential supervisors before applying?
- When will I receive a decision on my application?
- Do students propose their own research projects?
While formal applications are submitted online, prospective students are able to contact supervisors for project-specific queries or clarifications. For programme-related or application questions, please contact the Brahmal Institute.
We aim to have all decisions and offers finalized by early March, 2026.
Students apply to predefined projects designed by cross-disciplinary supervisors. Each project aligns with the programme’s vision for bold, actionable, and high-impact research.