Funding Opportunities

Aberystwyth University is a member of the ESRC Welsh Graduate School in Social Science (WGSSS) which supports a number of fully-funded studentships in the social sciences. Students can apply for studentships in four research areas or ‘pathways’: (1) Environmental Planning, (2) Health, Well-Being and Data Science, (3) Human Geography and (4) Politics, International Relations, and Area Studies. Information on each pathway is provided in the links below.  

Applicants should consider approaching potential supervisors before submitting their application to confirm that there is appropriate supervisory capacity and to discuss their draft application.

What will the studentship cover:

Studentship awards cover your tuition fees as well as a maintenance grant and include access to additional funding through Research Training Support Grants (RTSG).  There are other opportunities and benefits available to studentship holders, including an overseas fieldwork allowance (if applicable), internship opportunities, overseas institutional visits and other small grants.

Eligibility

WGSSS studentships are highly competitive. Applications should come from exceptional candidates with a first class or strong upper second-class honours degree, or appropriate Master’s degree. The University values diversity and equality at all levels and encourages applications from all sections of the community, irrespective of age, disability, sex, gender identity, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation.  In line with our commitment to supporting and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion, and to increase recruitment of currently underrepresented groups, applications from Black British, Asian British, minority ethnicity British and mixed-race British candidates are particularly encouraged and welcomed.  We welcome applications for both full and part-time study.

Pathways:

Detailed information on eligibility, topic areas and the application process can be found on the links below.

Environmental Planning

Health Wellbeing and Data Science

Human Geography

Politics, International Relations, and Area Studies

The Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences (WGSSS) recently hosted two webinars; ‘How to apply for a WGSSS studentship’ and ‘How to write a research proposal’. The webinars were designed to make the competition more accessible to those who are considering applying in the 2024 WGSSS studentship competition. The webinars covered topics such as; how to find a supervisor, how to prepare for an interview, and how to structure your proposal. Recordings of the webinars are available on the WGSSS studentships page.

WGSSS welcomes applications from students of all backgrounds. We value academic excellence and life skills, as well as the ability to meet challenges and student’s capacity to enrich the life of our community. Widening participation is a key goal for WGSSS and we are keen to receive applications from able and ambitious students. We are a collaboration between Cardiff University (the lead institution), Aberystwyth University, Bangor University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, the University of Gloucestershire, the University of South Wales and Swansea University.  

The closing date for applications in the General Competition is the 12^th January 2024 (institutions may have earlier deadlines, these will be detailed in the individual General Competition adverts), the Collaborative Competition will be launching in March 2024.

Isabel Ann Robertson, always known as Ann, was a tutor in the Computer Science Department at Aberystwyth University for 25 years from 1984 to 2009. But her links with the University spanned several generations. Ann Davies was born in London in 1932, the eldest of three children. Her mother, Enid Sayers, had graduated in English from the then University College of Wales in Aberystwyth in the 1920s and later (as Enid Davies) was Vice President of the Old Students’ Association. Ann’s father, C W Davies, was also an Aber graduate and was later a professor of Chemistry and Head of the Chemistry Department. Ann studied Physics when the department was still based in the Old College on the seafront, graduating with a BSc in 1954 and an MSc by research in 1957. Her research was on cavitation. She was also a College athlete and a member of the Sailing Club. In 1956 she married David Robertson, whom she had met through the Sailing Club. His work for the Forestry Commission took them to many different parts of the UK, including Glasgow, where Ann took an MSc in Computer Science. They returned to Aberystwyth to live in the 1980s. Their daughter, Sara Robertson, also studied at Aberystwyth from 1978 to 1981 and their granddaughter, Fiona Robertson, followed, from 2011 to 2015.

Ann Robertson PhD Scholarship - Details of the Award & Available Projects

Open to applicants who qualify for Home (UK) fees status only, there are three full-time PhD scholarships available.  These will be allocated on a competitive basis to three of the projects described in the Ann Robertson PhD Scholarship 2025 Project Details. Those awarded an Ann Robertson Scholarship will receive a grant for up to three years which will cover their tuition fees up to the UK rate of £5,006 per annum (2025/26 rate).  A maintenance allowance of approximately £20,780 per annum* and access to a travel and conference fund (max. £1000 per annum*) will also be provided. Scholarships commence in September 2025 (although flexible starts up to February 2026 can be discussed).

How to Apply 

Applications will be assessed on a rolling monthly basis and we hope to assess applications after the following dates: 8th May 2025, 5th June 2025, 3rd July 2025.

To be considered, candidates must complete the usual full online PhD application AND the specific  Ann Robertson PHD Scholarship Application Form 2025 

The completed Ann Robertson Scholarship Application Form should be submitted via our online Postgraduate Application Portal at the point of application.   

To make a full PhD application, firstly visit our course pages and find the details of the course for which you wish to apply.  Once you have found your chosen course page, select the “Apply Now” button to start your application.  

The Postgraduate Admissions Application Portal will ask you to provide us with your personal details, confirm your course selection(s) and upload documents in support of your application.  Please have you supporting documents saved in PDF format and ready to upload to your online application. 

At the same time, the completed Ann Robertson Scholarship Application Form should also be sent as an attachment by email to Prof Reyer Zwiggelaar (rrz@aber.ac.uk), Head of Graduate School, with the subject heading ANN ROBERTSON SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION. 

Please ensure that you read the Ann Robertson PhD Scholarship Terms & Conditions thoroughly. 

Any Questions? 

If you have any specific queries regarding the projects listed, please contact the main supervisor associated with the project.  

If you have any queries about the postgraduate application process please contact
 pg-admissions@aber.ac.uk

Ann Robertson PhD Scholarship Project Details

• Mathematics

Mathematics

An Ann Robertson PhD Scholarship is available to fund any project offered by the Department of Mathematics. Visit the Mathematics PhD Projects page for descriptions of typical PhD projects on offer and the Mathematics Research pages for further information on the Department's research.

AberDoc Scholarships are part of a prestigious fund for Research Postgraduates.

These awards are tailored to enable students to develop the necessary skills required to meet their career choices and offer a breadth of development opportunities to enhance their research, teaching and transferable skills.

For more information, check out the dedicated page for AberDoc.

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Programme Award

The History of Herbal Medicine

Aberystwyth University AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship with the National Library of Wales, Amgueddfa Cymru, and the National Botanic Garden of Wales

Hanes Meddygaeth Lysieuol yng Nghymru, 1840 i 1948
(The History of Medical Herbalism in Wales, 1840 to 1948)

Start date: 1 February 2026
Application Deadline: 10 December 2025
Interviews will take place: 18-19 December 2025

Aberystwyth University, and the National Library of Wales, Amgueddfa Cymru, and the National Botanic Garden of Wales are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative doctoral studentship from October 2025 under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme.

The student will be based at Aberystwyth University and the National Library of Wales, Amgueddfa Cymru, and the National Botanic Garden of Wales. There will be opportunities to take part in the programme of CDP Cohort Development events and other activities organized for CDP students by the AHRC, as well as training and development provided by Aberystwyth University and the CDP Welsh Culture and Heritage Consortium.

Project Details 
This research project considers the history of herbal medicine – the use of plants to treat illness and ensure good health – in Wales during late nineteenth century and early twentieth century and asks what it tells us about Welsh people's understanding and experiences of health and illness, nature and the environment, and medicine in the modern period.

Through study of nineteenth-century medical and herbal self-help books located at the National Library of Wales, collections of herbal recipes and tapes of oral history interviews at St Fagans National Museum of History, and the plant collection, herbarium, and seed bank of the National Botanic Garden of Wales, the project explores the varied influences that shaped herbal medicine in Wales and the ways in which Welsh people attempted to look after their health and well-being. The successful candidate will also benefit from the skillsets and expertise of the project partners to develop a range of different outreach and impact initiatives at sites in Wales.

The successful candidate will be supervised by Dr Steve Thompson, Department of History and Welsh History, and Dr Bleddyn Huws, Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies, at Aberystwyth University, in addition to Dafydd Pritchard, National Library of Wales, Dr Sioned Williams, Amgueddfa Cymru, and Dr Laura Jones, National Botanic of Wales whilst on placements at those institutions. 

For informal enquiries about the project, please contact Dr Steve Thompson, sdt@aber.ac.uk

Studentship Award Details
CDP doctoral training grants fund full-time studentships for 48 months (4 years) or part-time equivalent up to a maximum of 8 years. Placement and development opportunities, to be shaped in collaboration with the successful candidate, will be embedded into this funding period.

The award pays tuition fees up to the value of the full-time home fee. Research Councils UK Indicative Fee Level for 2025/2026 is £5,006* Students with an ‘overseas’ fee status are welcome to apply but will need to cover the difference between the UK and overseas fees rate and will be required to reside in the UK until completion of the PhD. The UK and overseas fees rate for 2025/26 is £18,060.

The award pays an annual stipend for all students, both home and international students. This stipend is tax free, and is the equivalent of an annual salary, enabling the student to pay living costs. The UKRI Minimum Doctoral Stipend for 2025/2026 is £20,780 (rising in alignment with UKRI) plus a CDP maintenance payment of £600 per year.

The student is also eligible to receive an additional travel and related expenses grant during the course of the project courtesy of the CDP4 Welsh Heritage Consortium worth up to £400 per year for 4 years (48 months).

Eligibility Criteria
This studentship is open to both Home and International applicants. International applicants will need to demonstrate how they will cover the gap between the studentship and international PGR fees. To be classed as a home student, candidates must meet the following criteria:

• Be a UK National (meeting residency requirements), or
• Have settled status, or
• Have pre-settled status (meeting residency requirements), or
• Have indefinite leave to remain or enter

Further guidance can be found here based on revisions to Training Grant Terms and Conditions for projects starting in October 2025 - Policy statement: review of the training grant conditions – UKRI

The project can be undertaken on a full-time or part-time basis.

We want to encourage the widest range of potential students to apply for a CDP studentship and are committed to welcoming students from different backgrounds to apply.

Applicants should ideally have, or expect to receive a relevant Masters-level qualification and/or be able to demonstrate equivalent experience in a professional setting.  Suitable disciplines are flexible, but might include History, Welsh, Ethnobotany, and Ethnopharmacology. The ability to speak Welsh is an essential requirement for this studentship as the work will involve extensive use of Welsh-language historical sources.

1. All applicants must meet UKRI terms and conditions for funding. See:

https://www.ukri.org/funding/information-for-award-holders/grant-terms-and-conditions/

How to apply
To apply please visit: https://courses.aber.ac.uk/?study_level=&search_text=phd#postgraduate-courses and complete the application form.

Secondly, please contact Dr Steve Thompson sdt@aber.ac.uk to indicate that an application has been submitted.

We ask all applicants to complete a voluntary EDI monitoring form here. All responses are anonymous.

For further information about the studentship, please contact Dr Steve Thompson, sdt@aber.ac.uk

We are committed to supporting applicants from a variety of backgrounds. For further information on the process, or to request reasonable adjustments, please contact Postgraduate Admissions at pg-admissions@aber.ac.uk

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South, West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP)

Aberystwyth University is one of a number of institutions in the South, West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) and has successfully secured funding for PhD scholarships in the arts and humanities. Successful students may benefit from potential supervision and training opportunities available at more than one university within the DTP.

Please note that these awards are only available to UK students and are for new PhD students rather than current PhD students.

Please visit the South, West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership website for further information.

PhD Studentship – Negotiating the local and the global: a blueprint for screen cultures in minoritised languages

Aberystwyth University is offering a fully funded PhD studentship commencing in October 2026. The studentship is part of the Celtic Crescent Doctoral Fund Award, one of ten Doctoral Focal Awards funded by AHRC across the UK.  

Celtic Crescent

Celtic Crescent is a multilingual consortium of seven Higher Education Institutions across Cornwall, Scotland and Wales. Working with non-academic creative economy partners, the consortium aims to help grow the next generation of research and innovation talent in the creative economy. We focus particularly on creative economy microclusters marked by inequality, under-representation, and marginalisation arising from geographic, socio-economic, and linguistic factors. Studentships may be full-time or part-time, discipline-spanning, and may include practice-based, interdisciplinary, industry-led or minority-language research.

Doctoral research anchored in a sense of place has transformative potential to generate more diverse creative outputs, more innovation-ready SMEs, and more skilled innovators, thereby helping to sustain longer-term careers in our rural, coastal, and post-industrial creative economies. This vision underpins every aspect of Celtic Crescent’s work.

Funding

Studentships are fully-funded for a minimum of three and a half years (42 months) and a maximum of 4 years (48 months max, including any placements). Part-time students will be pro-rata.

Each studentship covers tuition fees, an annual tax-free living stipend (currently £21,805 for full-time study 2026-27) and includes access to a Research Training Support Grant. Full and part-time applications are welcomed.

The Project

This fully funded PhD explores the opportunities for screen fictions in minority languages. In the twenty-first century, globalisation has blurred cultural borders and destabilised long-held assumptions about both ‘nation’ and ‘cinema’. The rise of SVOD platforms has transformed global film production, distribution, and consumption. By commissioning major directors, funding large-scale productions, and enabling audiences to watch new releases in domestic settings, such platforms challenge the very definition of cinema while reshaping the cultural authority of national film industries.

At this moment of rapid change, Welsh-language filmmaking is well placed to provide alternative models which negotiate the local, national and global. Lacking large-scale organisational structures, alternative approaches to form and representation has been essential; and have developed in creative, unorthodox ways. It’s often collaborative and community driven, with global ambition.

For Welsh-language screen production, traditionally tied to S4C since 1982, Netflix’s localisation strategies have introduced new avenues: an episode of The Crown produced almost entirely in Welsh; Havoc, the largest feature film yet made in Wales, with Welsh subtitles available; and in 2023, the licensing of Dal y Mellt—the first Welsh-language series to appear on the platform. Such developments signal risks and opportunities for minoritised languages in a globalised media environment. 

By combining audiovisual and archival research with interviews and curatorial practice, this project will explore alternative platforms for Welsh-language film and identify principles that may be transferable to other minoritised language communities both within the UK and around the world. 

The student will benefit from being at the cutting edge of contemporary, global debates in film studies, but will be rooted and located within a Welsh-language context, while being informed by other minoritised language communities. 

Utilising visual collections housed at the NLW, including those of the National Screen and Sound Archive, the Wales Broadcast Archive, and the archive collections of the Welsh Film Board and the Arts Council of Wales, the studentship will address the following questions:

• How can a ‘Welsh film’ be defined?
• How can concepts of ‘national cinema’ and ‘transnational cinema’ be adapted to inform future developments of film culture in Wales?
• How may past experiences inform future directions for Welsh-language film in an age of streaming?
• How can insights from this project inform approaches to film production, distribution and exhibition in other minoritised language cultures?

As well as a written thesis, through collaborating with NSSAW and other stakeholders, the project will interpret NLW’s film collections and curate digital content for its 17 Clip Corners throughout Wales, providing unprecedented public access to Welsh-language content.  As well as theories of national and transnational cinema, the thesis will analyse the role of government policy and screen agencies in Wales.

Students will be based in Aberystwyth and will be part of a connected cohort of Celtic Crescent researchers sharing training and experiences. You will take part in at least one three-day residential Crucible Lab bringing the entire cohort together in one of our Celtic nations. It is not possible to study remotely.

Informal enquiries are encouraged: please contact Dr Kate Woodward klw@aber.ac.uk for further information.

Who Should Apply?

You will have

• Academic qualifications AND/OR experience in a relevant field (e.g. screen studies, media studies, creative industries, communication, language policy or related fields) equivalent to a UK honours degree at a first or upper second-class level;
• A strong interest in minority languages and screen cultures and industries
• An interest in applied, collaborative research
• Excellent communication skills, and an ability to work independently and to foster links within academic and industry networks.

This project requires a functional level of Welsh, with potential comparative work in other minoritised languages. This is essential for analysing screen content, consulting with archives and conducting interviews. The PhD thesis may be written in either Welsh or English, reflecting the student’s language proficiency and the bilingual nature of the research context.

We welcome applicants from all types of backgrounds, particularly those with professional or creative practice experience or non-traditional educational paths.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) are fundamental to the delivery of exceptional Higher Education and research. We welcome students from every background, particularly those from marginalised backgrounds. Our goal is to understand your learning style and help you create environments where you can thrive. Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) can provide you with funding for extra study-related costs due to mental or physical health conditions, learning differences or any other disabilities. 

Aberystwyth University EDI

Aberystwyth University Accessibility and Inclusion

International Eligibility

The studentship is available to home and international students. However, international students should note that the studentship only covers UK fees. This means that the difference between UK fees and international fees would have to be covered by the student themselves

A maximum 30% of each cohort may be international students.

How to apply

Applications should be received no later than 24 April 2026 at 4pm UK time including all required documents. Due to the volume of applications received, incomplete applications will not be considered.

All applications should be submitted via https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/study-with-us/pg-studies/apply/

Please include the following documents with your application:

• CV: this may be in conventional CV format, in narrative form or as a short video. It should demonstrate how your lived experience, educational and/or work journey showcases your potential;
• Statement outlining your interest in this project, your ideas for it and your suitability to undertake it (2 pages max);
• Details of two academic or professional referees. Referees must be able to comment on the applicant’s research strengths;
• Degree certificates and Transcripts (including translations if applicable);
• If relevant, proof of English Language Competency (see institutional requirements for entry).

Assessment

Short-listed applicants will be invited to interview, during which applicants will be asked to give a short presentation and answer a series of panel questions.  Interviews may be held in person but will also be available through Zoom/Teams for all students who wish to participate in that way. Interviews can be conducted in Welsh or English. Interview questions will be provided in advance. Accommodations may include pre-recorded presentations, written presentations, or structured Q&As instead of a presentation. We are open to other accommodations that would help you do your best in the assessment.

Other funding opportunities are available. For more information check the dedicated Other Funding page.