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 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 for Digital Media 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 2026/27 academic year this is £23,805, 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 11^th January 2027.

Before applying:

1. Applicants should visit www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here to find out more about applying for a PhD programme at Royal Holloway 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:

20^th October 2026: Deadline for applications on Royal Holloway Applicant Portal

1^st December 2026: Applicants notified of outcome

11^th January 2027: Student’s start date

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: Thursday 24^th September from 1:30 - 3pm and repeated on Wednesday 30^th September from 12:30 – 2pm. Please sign up here to attend an online information event.

Funding

The studentship will fund full-time or part-time UK rate tuition fees and UKRI rate stipend (for 2026/27 academic year this is £23,805, including London Allowance) for 3.5 years including a 3-month placement for career enhancing activity.

Funding is available for UK Home students only. Successful applicants are expected to start on the 11^th January 2027.