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Value

PhD tuition fees and stipend at the UKRI level for 3.5 years

Deadline

Thursday 21 November 2024

Eligibility

For research interests aligning with, or cutting across, ECA's Schools. Open to UK and Overseas applicants for full-time and part-time PhD on campus study.

The University of Edinburgh is part of a consortium of ten Higher Education institutions which has been awarded funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to support postgraduate doctoral studentships and training through the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH).

Applying for this scholarship? Find out how your personal data will be used.

Studentship application deadline - Thursday 21 November 2024 (23:59 GMT)

The studentships are being awarded as part of the AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) scheme, which forms part of the wider Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH).

The award will cover the PhD tuition fee and a stipend at the UKRI level (around £19,237) for up to 3.5 years full-time study (pro-rata for part-time study).

Postgraduate research candidates applying for admission to Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) may be eligible for a studentship from the AHRC. ECA has a vibrant research community reflecting the diverse expertise of its members and the disciplines it brings together. It encourages applications from applicants who have a research interest aligning with, or cutting across, ECA's Schools: Architecture and Landscape ArchitectureArtDesignHistory of ArtMusic.

Are you eligible?

Candidates will normally hold a relevant First Class Honours degree (such as BA, BMus, BSc or LLB) and preferably a similar calibre of Master’s degree.  PhD students within the eligible subject areas who are currently in their first year of study are eligible to apply.

Awards are available to Home fee applicants and limited awards available for International applicants. Please check the full UKRI eligibility criteria here.

To qualify for Home status an applicant must: be a UK National (meeting residency requirements), or have settled status, or have pre-settled status AND meet residency requirement (3 years residency in the UK/EEA/Gibraltar/Switzerland immediately before the start of the PhD) or have indefinite leave to enter or remain.

In accordance with UKRI and AHRC policy, permissible positive action is being applied to the 2025 SGSAH DTP Open Studentships. For the 2025 competition, SGSAH is making available at least three ring-fenced studentships for applicants from UK Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. These 3 ring-fenced studentships represent a minimum recruitment, with no maximum. 

For further information on eligibility and residency criteria can be found on How to Apply section on the SGSAH website. 

The application process

Stage 1

To apply for the AHRC SGSAH PhD Doctoral Studentship, you must first apply for admission for an eligible PhD programme of study at ECA (start date September 2025). All on campus PhD programmes at ECA are eligible (full-time and part-time study).  PhD by Distance programmes are not eligible. 

You must make your PhD programme application through the EUCLID online application system to the University in full by Thursday 14 November 2024 (23:59 GMT). Please ensure that all supporting documentation (eg research proposal, references, transcripts etc) are uploaded with your application.  Incomplete applications may not be considered.

AHRC SGSAH PhD Doctoral studentship applications that do not have a matching PhD programme application will not be considered.  You do not need a PhD offer before applying for the AHRC SGSAH PhD Doctoral Studentship but you must have made a PhD application.  If you are currently a first year PhD student at the University, please see Stage 2.

If you’d like to discuss your application with potential supervisors, or have any enquiries you wish to discuss with the Postgraduate Research Team or the School Postgraduate Research Directors, please do so as soon as possible before the deadlines.

Stage 2

Applicants must then complete and submit the SGSAH PhD Doctoral studentship application form by email to the ECA Postgraduate Research Team (ecaresearchdegrees@ed.ac.uk) by no later than Thursday 21 November 2024 (23:59 GMT). Applications received after this will not be considered. 

Please refer to the SGSAH PhD Doctoral studentship application guidance and complete each section of the application form as instructed. The SGSAH PhD Doctoral Studentship application form for ECA and full guidance are attached here:

Please note that the Institutional Statement and Nominating Member of Staff details are not required at this stage.

Stage 3

The ECA Selection Panel will meet in mid-December 2024 to select applications to go forward to the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science (CAHSS) for nomination to the SGSAH.

The SGSAH assessment criteria for SGSAH PhD Doctoral Studentships will be used by the ECA Selection Panel. The Panel will rank the applications in relation to the criteria outlined in the AHRC DTP guidance document (see link above).

Applicants will be notified by late December 2024 if they have been selected to go forward to the SGSAH Selection Panels.

Stage 4

If selected by ECA and CAHSS, you and your potential PhD supervisor will be requested to develop the SGSAH PhD Doctoral studentship application form and draft the Institutional Statement. The SGSAH PhD Doctoral studentship application must be submitted as an online version through the SGSAH Portal, which will be open from 3 February (09:00 GMT) to 14 February 2025 (12:00 noon GMT).

The SGSAH Selection Panels will then consider the applications as per the review process outlined on their website. Final results will be announced by the SGSAH by the end of April 2025.

Deadlines

PhD application deadline – Thursday 14 November 2024 (23:59 GMT)

SGSAH studentship application deadline – Thursday 21 November 2024 (23:59 GMT)

Please note: you must complete both steps by the specified deadlines in order to be considered for this funding opportunity.

Any questions?

Please contact the ECA Postgraduate Research Team (ecaresearchdegrees@ed.ac.uk) if you have any questions about the application process.

If you have an academic enquiry please contact the School Postgraduate Research (PGR) Director for the programme you wish to apply for:

The College Dean of Postgraduate Research hosted an online information session for prospective SGSAH applicants on 15 October 2024.  The slides presented at this meeting can be accessed here.