MPhil/PhD Funding

Start date: 1st October 2025 

Application Deadline: 26 May 2025 

Interviews will take place in the week commencing 9 June

The Institute of Historical Research (School of Advanced Study, University of London) and Historic Royal Palaces are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded collaborative doctoral studentship from October 2025 under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme. 

This project will explore the intersection between London’s immigrant communities, the Crown, and the Tower of London in the Late Medieval and Tudor Period, combining for the first time an archival study of the royal household with a digital humanities analysis of existing databases of Londoners and immigrant communities. 

This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Justin Colson and Dr Adam Chapman, Institute of Historical Research, and Dr Charles Farris and Alexandra Stevenson, Historic Royal Palaces. The student will be expected to spend time at both the Institute of Historical Research and Historic Royal Palaces, as well as become part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK. 

The studentship can be studied either full or part-time. 

We encourage the widest range of potential students to study for this CDP studentship from different backgrounds and career stages to apply. 

Students should have a master’s degree in a relevant subject or demonstrate relevant equivalent experience.  

The studentship is open to both home and international applicants. 

This project will explore the interaction between London’s immigrant communities, the Crown, and the Tower of London in the Late Medieval and Tudor Period. High wages in the aftermath of the Black Death, and a burgeoning consumer economy made London a melting pot of people, skills, and increasingly global commodities. Many of these people, and skills, were excluded by the formal institutions of civic life, but consumers, not least the Crown, sought them out nonetheless. Looking at the lives of Londoners through the lens of their relationship with the Tower of London promises to open a broader perspective on the diverse lives lived in late medieval and Tudor London.  

The Crown, through the Tower of London and Royal Wardrobe, was one of the largest consumers of goods and services in London. As a result, this relationship offers a unique way to study the people producing and trading everyday commodities, which has been neglected in the scholarship of this period. Scholars have previously tended to focus on working lives through the records of institutions like guilds and are therefore constrained by the exclusionary perspectives of those privileged groups. Combining archival study of the expenditure of the royal household with digital humanities analysis of existing databases of Londoners and aliens makes it feasible to join the royal and civic sources for the first time.   

The Tower of London is often at the centre of this rich history, which exemplified the complicated relationship between the City and the Crown. It was not only a major consumer of goods and services provided by the City, an exit point for goods and people exported for royal enterprises (including warfare), and a place of arrival for many of London’s immigrants, but its officials were an important legal and commercial royal presence in the city.  

The Crown’s rich records offer a unique opportunity for seeing the diversity of global goods, and diverse suppliers and craftspeople supplying them in London during this period. Documents created in the Royal Household and Exchequer, which survive in archives including The National Archives, British Library, Society of Antiquaries, and many county archives, often show the surprising range of Londoners and everyday people supplying the Crown, from Flemish brewers to Greek jewellers. 

This project will compare data from these royal sources documenting goods and people for the first time with England’s Immigrants database (detailing the ‘Alien Subsidy’ poll tax on migrants) and the London Customs Accounts (c.1350-1560) to produce a digital prosopography of the lives of suppliers to the palace. 

The Tower of London is one of six palaces looked after by Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), an independent charity whose portfolio also includes Hampton Court Palace. The project offers HRP an exciting and timely opportunity to better understand the historic environments and context of the Tower, whilst supporting strategic ambitions to research and communicating diverse and untold stories to our onsite and online audiences. The Tower welcomes over 2.5 million visitors each year - the most paid for visitor attraction in the UK – and an online audience of over 6 million, creating enormous potential for research impact.    

This CDP project will give the student a unique combination of skills in pre-modern archival record study; digital humanities skills in data linkage and data management; and applied heritage and public history skills in telling the stories of those lives affected by the palaces. It will also provide the student with exceptional professional development opportunities, leading into a career in heritage, academia, and a range of other industries.  

Research questions include: 

• Who supplied the Tower and royal household in London, both with goods and labour, and how did they fit into the wider London community? 
• What can studying the commercial realities through the detailed records of the royal household, rather than normative prescriptions, tell us about the place of diverse communities in the life of London? 
• Did the Crown engage the best people, regardless of their origins?
• Did the Crown and the Tower, in fact, offer economic opportunities to Londoners who the civic authorities tried to exclude? 
• Did the Crown’s desire for new global goods involve dealing with increasingly diverse suppliers and craftspeople? 
• In what ways can these stories be communicated to public audiences, and how can data be combined with objects in museology? 

Research with Historic Royal Palaces

This research studentship is allocated to Historic Royal Palaces by the AHRC. The successful student will be expected to spend time carrying out research and gaining relevant experience with the partner at the Tower of London as part of the studentship. 

CDP doctoral training grants fund full-time studentships for 4 years (or part-time equivalent up to a maximum of 8 years). 

The award pays tuition fees up to the value of the full-time home UKRI rate for PhD degrees. Research Councils UK Indicative Fee Level for 2025/2026 is a minimum of £5,006.

For this studentship, international students will only be charged home fees by the University of London, which are covered by the award. International students will be required to reside in the UK until completion of the PhD. 

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 National Minimum Doctoral Stipend for 2025/6 is £20,780* plus, an allowance of £2000/year for London weighting. There is also a CDP maintenance payment of £600/year. 

Further details can be found on the UKRI website.

The student is eligible to receive an additional travel and related expenses grant during the course of the project courtesy of Historic Royal Palaces worth up to £850 per year for 4 years. 

The successful candidate will be encouraged to participate in professional development events and activities organised for all Collaborative Doctoral Partnership students who are registered with different universities and studying with cultural and heritage organisations across the UK. These activities are organised by a coordination team based at the V&A and are designed to provide CDP researchers with the knowledge, networks and skills to thrive in their future careers. 

• This studentship is open to both Home and International applicants. 

• 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
   
• International students are eligible to receive the full award for maintenance as are home students.
• We want to encourage the widest range of potential students to study for a CDP studentship and are committed to welcoming students from different backgrounds to apply. We particularly welcome applications from people from Diverse Ethnic Communities as they are currently underrepresented at this level in this area.
• Applicants should ideally have or expect to receive a relevant master’s-level qualification or be able to demonstrate equivalent experience in a professional setting. Suitable disciplines are flexible, but might include History, Medieval Studies, Early Modern Studies, Digital Humanities, or Heritage Management. 
• Applicants must be able to demonstrate an interest in the museum sector and potential and enthusiasm for developing experience and skills cognisant with a potential future career in the cultural, heritage, galleries, museums, and archive sectors.  
• As a collaborative award, students will be expected to spend time at both the University and Historic Royal Palaces.  

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

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

To apply for this position, please send your CV, cover letter, and a sample of your own writing (c. 2000 words), to Dr Justin Colson ([email protected]) with the subject heading “Material Networks CDP Application”.

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

Your cover letter should provide: 1) information on how your qualifications and experience are suitable to work on the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Studentship for ‘Material Networks’; 2) an outline of how you might approach and develop this doctoral project during your four years of study (full-time) or eight years (part-time); and 3) the contact details for two academic references.

Your sample of writing may be an essay of around 2,000 words, an extract from a dissertation, or an equivalent piece of work on a historical topic or related subject.

Applicants are welcome to contact Dr Justin Colson ([email protected]) if they have any questions. 

Applicants can expect reasonable adjustments throughout the process. If you require any assistance through the application, or interview process (if you are shortlisted), please contact: [email protected]. 

LAHP is a Doctoral Training Partnership co-funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and eight Higher Education Institution (HEI) partners. The School of Advanced Study is one of these partners.

LAHP funds up to 90 PhD studentships each year at these HEIs in subjects across the Arts & Humanities. Of these studentships, 10% are Collaborative Doctoral Awards with a cultural or other external partner. There are separate competitions for CDA and open studentships.

Find out more regarding the student eligibility criteria for these studentships.

Applications open via the LAHP application portal.

Please visit the LAHP website for their current application deadline.

The University of London Scholars award is open to applicants who are resident in London and who have been offered a place on the School's MPhil/PhD Programme for September 2025 entry. There are two awards to a total value of £15,000 each to cover fees plus maintenance.

To be eligible to apply applicants must have an offer on the School's MPhil/PhD programme for September 2025 entry.

Applicants must be resident in London. (This scholarship is not available to distance learning students).

The primary criterion on which applications are judged is academic merit. The successful applicant will be of exceptional quality, evidenced by previous academic achievement at undergraduate level, with an outstanding mark achieved in the final-year project/dissertation.

The initiative is in support of the University of London’s strategy to help young people across London flourish – while narrowing social, economic and health inequalities. As well as aiming to close the attainment gap between students.

The awards therefore also prioritise students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We define disadvantaged as:

• Students with low household income or low socio-economic status (including those with an annual household income of £25,000 or less)
• Students receiving Universal Credit or income-related benefits because they are financially supporting themselves or financially supporting themselves and someone who is dependent on them and living with them, such as a child or partner
• Students who are care-experienced
• Students who have caring responsibilities
• Neither of the students’ parents can be found or it is not reasonably practicable to get in touch with either of them (estranged students)
• Refugees and asylum seekers
• Students with a disability
• Veterans - people who served in the active military, naval, or air service and who have been discharged or released .

Applicants will need to describe how the above criteria applies to them and what difference receiving such an award will make to their education and opportunity.

Complete the online studentship application form and send any supporting evidence to [email protected].

The deadline for applications is 23:59 (UK time), 20 March 2025.

The Yusuf Ali Fund was established in 1956, following the death of Mr Yusuf Ali. Its purpose then was to assist University of London students from India and Pakistan and was used in a discretionary manner for many years.

Today, we are honoured to offer the Yusuf Ali Scholarship for students of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent to enable them to study on one of the campus-based postgraduate programmes offered by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Human Rights Consortium at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Currently, these are for our research degrees only.

Awards will range in value between £3,000 and £7,795, depending on the financial need of applicants. The decision to make an award will be dependent on the excellence of the applicant’s academic and professional experience. The total amount awarded to any applicants is at the discretion of the selection panel.

Applications should be sent to Kay Musonda, Institute Administrator, including:

• a filled application form
• an up to date CV

The deadline for applications are 23:59 (BST), 30 April 2024. Any applications received after this time may not be considered.

The Rubinstein Scholarship is open to home students who have been offered a place on the Warburg Institute’s MPhil/PhD Programme.

It covers home fees and provides an annual £18,000 maintenance payment for a maximum of three years. This scholarship is not available to distance learning students.

To be eligible to apply students had to have been offered a place on the PhD programme and be categorised as an home student.

The scholarship will be awarded on the basis of academic merit.

To find out more and apply please visit the Warburg Institute site.

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday, 14 March 2025.