SEDarc ESRC Studentships

A SEDarc award pays tuition fees at the UK home rate and a stipend at the UKRI rate, which is 21,805 pounds a year for 2026-27; Royal Holloway quotes 23,805 pounds, as its awards include a 2,000 pound London allowance. Students also receive a research training support grant for conferences, fieldwork in the UK or overseas, visits to other institutions, training in difficult languages and placement costs.

There are three award lengths. Applicants who already hold a master's degree, or equivalent professional experience, take a 3.5 year award (3.75 years for those who need extra skills modules). Applicants with a bachelor's degree but no social science master's take a 1+3.5 award of 4.5 years: an integrated master's year followed by the doctorate. The ESRC does not fund a master's on its own, so the master's year is only for students who go on to the PhD. Every length includes three months for a placement.

Part-time awards are possible for applicants with home fee status, at 50 percent of the full-time rate. International applicants can win awards, up to 30 percent of the cohort, and the partner universities cover the difference between home and international fees, except the University of Reading. Awards start in the autumn only, cannot be deferred, and are not open to anyone who has already started a PhD anywhere.

Up to three studentships in each year's competition are kept for home applicants who identify as Black or Black British (Caribbean, African or any other Black background) or as Asian or Asian British of Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Indian heritage. They must be assessed as eligible for the home fee rate and meet every other SEDarc requirement. The partnership describes the awards as positive action under the Equality Act 2010, in line with the public sector equality duty.

The ring fence sits within a wider set of commitments. Interview panels are trained to judge potential and the full range of an applicant's abilities, applicants can disclose equality and socio-economic information anonymously so the partnership can check whether its policies work, and a community of practice meets twice a year for students from under-represented groups to talk about inclusive doctoral practice.

SEDarc funds fourteen social science disciplines, grouped into five thematic pathways: Living Sustainably; Healthy, Thriving Communities; Inclusive Economic Growth; Secure, Effective and Trusted Institutions; and Transformative Technologies for Society. Not every university offers every discipline. Surrey offers business and management, economics, linguistics, politics and international relations, psychology and sociology; law and criminology run at Kent, Royal Holloway and Sussex.

Applicants apply through one university only, which nominates them. Each university has its own contact, its own earlier deadline and its own way of choosing whom to put forward; Royal Holloway, for example, forwards up to 18 top-ranked candidates to the partnership-wide competition.

Funded students complete 200 hours of training a year, 50 of them as contact hours. The first year begins with an induction week in October and includes Research in Practice, ten compulsory sessions on the first Wednesday afternoon of each month with speakers who use their doctorates outside universities, plus general skills training; later years add specialist training chosen through a yearly analysis of each student's needs. A summer school, usually in June or July, is compulsory for all funded students.

Most students take their three-month placement in the second year, with a host in academia, policy, business or the third sector. The placement must be a separate project: it cannot collect data for the thesis or be hosted by the supervisor. It is optional, but opting out shortens the studentship by three months. Theses include a knowledge exchange chapter, such as a policy report or a piece of public communication, drawn from this work.