University of Edinburgh Business School Doctoral Access Scholarship

The Business School really values doctoral research and looks for the best and brightest to join our global student and alumni community. However, we understand that joining a PhD programme can be financially difficult. To ensure that highly achieving individuals who may face barriers accessing postgraduate research study have the opportunity to pursue a PhD with us, the Business School is offering one fully-funded scholarship. The scholarship will cover tuition fees and offer a stipend at the UKRI minimum rate, will be awarded to a candidate looking to pursue their own research topic in one of our academic research areas.

Award

Available for students who are UK nationals and domiciled in the UK, the Business School will offer one scholarship to cover full tuition fees and an annual stipend for one of their Doctoral programmes for entry in September 2025. This scholarship will support those who may face barriers in accessing postgraduate research study and are underrepresented in postgraduate research programmes. The scholarship is for students who meet at least one of our widening participation criteria.

Eligibility

All candidates must hold a conditional or unconditional offer for one of the Business School’s PhD programmes starting September 2025. You can apply for this scholarship while waiting for an outcome of your application, but scholarships can only be awarded to those with an offer for one of our programmes. Therefore, please ensure all necessary documents have been uploaded to your programme application at least 10 working days before the scholarship deadline.

You must be a UK national domiciled in the UK.

In addition, you must meet at least one of the following eligibility criteria:

  • You are care-experienced. We define care experience as any time spent in care at any stage of your life. Care may have been provided in one of many different settings, such as if you were:
    • in residential care
    • in foster care
    • in kinship care
    • looked after at home with a supervision requirement
  • This includes adopted children who were previously looked after. There is no age restriction on our definition of care experienced.
  • You were/are in receipt of a Maintenance Grant as an undergraduate (if you started your undergraduate course after August 2016 you will need to provide evidence from the Student Loans Company to confirm your household income was assessed as £40,000 or less).
  • You were/are in receipt of a Young Students' Bursary, an Independent Students' Bursary, or a Care Experienced Students' Bursary as an undergraduate—as assessed by Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS).
  • You live in an area within the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation lowest 20% (SIMD20)**
  • You live in an area with an Acorn classification of 5.

**To check your eligibility for the two postcode criteria above, use the postcode lookup tool. We will use the home address where you lived during your last year of school or college.

We particularly encourage applicants who have one of the following categories of ethnicity to apply: Black Caribbean; Black African; Black Other; Mixed – White/Black Caribbean; Mixed – White /Black African; or Other mixed background that includes Caribbean heritage.

Please note, you will not be eligible for this scholarship if:

  • You are fully sponsored by your employer.
  • You are already in receipt of a full scholarship.
  • You already hold a PhD qualification.

Criteria

Your proposed area of study must fall within one of our six broad research areas. While any topic that falls within the six broad research areas will be considered, applicants whose proposal aligns with highlighted areas of interest may be given preference.

Applications are ranked considering a number of criteria, most importantly:

  • The academic background of the candidates, including their achievements/research experience so far
  • The potential of the candidates' doctoral research proposal (e.g., novelty, contribution)
  • A whole person approach – preparedness and potential to:
    • undertake and complete a PhD.
    • flourish with funding.
    • contribute to a positive/diverse PhD community

Once candidates are ranked based on the above criteria those also demonstrating financial need and widening access criteria will be prioritised for interview.

Applying

The scholarship deadline is 23:59 (GMT) on Monday 3rd of February 2025.

To be considered, candidates must submit both a programme application and a scholarship application using the University's Online Application System. 

We strongly encourage applicants to reach out directly to potential advisors at the Business School by email to discuss the opportunity of doing a PhD under their supervision. Applicants should take care to ensure the academic staff they reach out to have similar research interests. To do this, candidates should browse staff profiles.

You will only be able to access the scholarship application after you have applied to your chosen programme. It is recommended that the programme application be submitted at least 10 working days before the scholarship application.

Notification

Candidates will be notified of the outcome of their application by April 2025.

Please be aware that we also hold a reserve list. In the event that a successful candidate later declines their award, the award will be offered to the top candidate on the reserve list. Candidates will be notified if they are listed as a reserve candidate.

Contact Details

UEBS Postgraduate Research Support team:  phd@business-school.ed.ac.uk

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