Announcing 10 PhD Studentships within the Royal Holloway Social Purpose Centre for Doctoral Training

As a research-intensive university, we’re of one of the UK’s top 30 universities for research quality according to The Complete University Guide. We encourage innovation and rising talent, enabling established and emerging research leaders to achieve excellence and respond to new opportunities. 

Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL)  leads and is in partnership with a number of Doctoral Training Partnerships and Doctoral Landscape Awards (AHRC DLA, AHRC Techne, ESRC SEDarc, BBSRC LIDo, NERC Aries, NERC TREES) as well as Centres for Doctoral Training (UKRI AI and Digital Inclusion, EPSRC Cybersecurity for the Everyday). We have an excellent Researcher Development programme, and wider institutional postgraduate training. We are committed to supporting a strong and growing PGR community, including PGR-Led activities (including “The Other Kind of Doctor” podcast and blog), annual conference, and opportunities to connect and engage with PGRs outside your main discipline.

Details of the Award:

The studentship will fund full-time UK-rate tuition fees and UKRI-rate stipend (for 2025/26 academic year this is £22,780, including London Allowance) for 3.5 years including a 3-month placement for career enhancing research activity. 

• Applicants must be eligible for UK home fees.
• Applicants must be available to start 19^th January 2026.

Before applying:

1. Applicants should visit https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/ to find out more about applying for a PhD programme at RHUL within their field of interest. You may also wish to explore department specific webpages to find out more.
2. Applicants must identify a supervisor and get in touch with them directly before preparing an application for submission. You should have an agreement from your proposed supervision team that they will support your application. You may submit your own proposal or can select and develop a project proposed by a potential supervisor. The following proposal ideas have been suggested by supervisors actively seeking PhD students; if you are interested in one of these, please get in touch with the project supervisor directly. To view potential projects, please visit the CDT’s webpage, here.
3. Prepare application following the Applicant information guidance document, available on the CDT’s webpage, here.

Where to apply:

• Apply directly through the Royal Holloway Applicant Portal.

The timetable for the competition is as follows: 15th October 2025

Deadline for applications on Royal Holloway Applicant Portal 6^th November 2025

Applicants notified of outcome 19^th January 2026

Student’s start date

If you have questions about opportunities within Schools, contact the relevant Director of Postgraduate Research Education. 

School of Business and Management

Dr Gül Berna Özcan

School of Engineering, Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Dr  Elizabeth Quaglia

School of Humanities

Professor Andrew Jotischky

School of Life & Environment Sciences

Dr Rebecca Fisher

School of Law & Social Sciences

Professor Emily Glorney

School of Performing and Digital Arts

Professor Tina K. Ramnarine

Royal Holloway is committed to supporting students from all backgrounds to access our programmes. To help address any questions about doctoral study and the applications process we are hosting two information events for interested applicants: Friday 19th September from 12pm -1:30 pm and repeated on Thursday 2nd October from 2pm – 3:30pm. Please sign up here to attend an online information event.