Rural and remote-focused, gender-transformative health promotion (PhD scholarship)

Application dates

Applications close

10 April 2026

What you'll receive

• You'll receive a stipend of $42,000 per annum for a maximum duration of 3.5 years while undertaking a QUT PhD. The duration includes an extension of up to six months (PhD) if approved for your candidature. This is the full-time, tax exempt rate which will index annually.
• You will receive a tuition fee offset/sponsorship, covering the cost of your tuition fees for the first four full-time equivalent years of your doctoral studies.
• You will be provided with additional projects funds to support field work and knowledge translation.
• As the scholarship recipient, you will have the opportunity to work with a team of leading researchers, to undertake your own innovative research in and across the field.

Eligibility

How to apply

Apply for this scholarship at the same time you apply for admission to QUT's Doctor of Philosophy.

• The first step is to email Associate Professor Christina Malatzky no later than the 10 April 2026, with the following:
  • a cover letter outlining your research interests and motivation and how your experience and skills link with the project remit
  • a brief project proposal detailing your idea for the project (approximately 500 words).
  • a CV highlighting relevant experience and achievements and including two referees
  • copies of relevant academic transcripts.
• If supported to apply, you will then submit an expression of interest (EOI) following the advice at how to apply for a research degree.
• In your EOI, nominate Associate Professor Christina Malatzky, as your proposed principal supervisor, and copy the link to this scholarship web page into question two of the financial details section.

About the scholarship

Overview

In a partnership between Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and the Queensland Women and Girls’ Health Promotion Program (QWGHP), we are offering a fully funded PhD scholarship for a motivated candidate to undertake doctoral research focused on gender-transformative health promotion in rural and remote Queensland.

This PhD opportunity offers the chance to directly influence from a gender and health equity perspective preventive health policy and practice in Queensland. The successful candidate will work closely with QWGHP’s state-wide team, have access to real-world projects and stakeholders, and contribute to informing implementation of gender transformative health promotion as well as translating evidence into policy and practice. Your research will be supported by both the School of Public Health and Social Work and the QUT Centre for Justice and inform community-orientated approaches to reducing health inequity for women and girls in rural and remote Queensland.

We welcome applications from candidates with diverse academic pathways and lived experience. The successful candidate will need a comprehensive knowledge of Australian contexts, with experience living, working or studying in regional, rural or remote communities desirable.

This PhD will contribute to interdisciplinary research that brings together QWGHP values and QWGHP priorities through a critical health promotion lens - examining how power, policy, and practice intersect to shape health outcomes. The research will interrogate dominant approaches to health promotion and explore ways to strengthen community capacity and workforce development to advance gendertransformative health promotion in rural and remote Queensland.

Research focus

The research question and project design will be shaped by you, the candidate, and your interests and experiences. Potential areas of focus may include, but are not limited to:

• Critically examining how current health promotion frameworks perpetuate or challenge structural inequity in rural/remote contexts, with particular attention to how intersecting systems of power. (colonialism, heteropatriarchy, ableism) shape health outcomes.
• Analysing the determinants that enable or constrain gender-transformative approaches to move beyond individualistic behavioural interventions towards community-orientated approaches that address root causes of health inequity.
• Developing and evaluating place-based, community-led approaches to gendertransformative health promotion that embed lived experience from priority communities (First Nations women, women with disability, LGBTQIA+ communities, culturally diverse women) in rural/ remote Queensland.
• Mapping enablers and barriers to cross-sectoral collaboration in rural settings, identifying ‘magic ingredients’ and the catalytic processes that enable successful translation of gender-transformative approaches across health, education, justice, and community sectors.
• Co-designing evaluation frameworks with communities to demonstrate the impact of gender-transformative health promotion initiatives, focusing on what works, for whom, and in what contexts in rural/remote settings.

Supervision

The successful candidate will be supervised by Dr. Lana Elliott and Assoc Prof Christina Malatzky. This supervisory team brings expertise in health promotion, critical health sociology, feminist methodologies, and the political economy of health systems. These supervisors are committed to research that challenges dominant biomedical paradigms and examines how structural forces shape health inequities. This PhD will employ critical theoretical frameworks to interrogate taken-forgranted assumptions in health promotion and focus on place-conscious, community-driven responses for driving change. The candidate and their supervisory team will work directly with colleagues and programs under the Queensland Health Prevention Strategy Branch’s Queensland Women and Girls’ Health Promotion Program. Supervision from experts within QWGHP, including Dr Emma Heard as industry supervisor, will also ensure alignment of the research and potential for long term policy and practice impact.

Further information

To apply or learn more, contact Associate Professor Christina Malatzky in advance of the deadline.