Edinburgh College of Art PhD Scholarship

Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is delighted to announce its next round of scholarships to applicants for PhD research programmes in our five Schools: School of Art; School of Design; ESALA (Architecture and Landscape Architecture); History of Art; and the Reid School of Music.

Our Schools offer a rich and vibrant postgraduate research community with a broad range of academic research interests. ECA is proud of its world-leading research, which stretches across and beyond the disciplines of its five Schools covering Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Art, Design, History of Art, and Music.  

Applications are invited for research projects that take advantage of the leading research expertise across the ECA Schools. ECA will aim to provide a supervisory team which will consist of at least two supervisors. Applicants may indicate potential supervisors in their application.  

Scholarship award holders are expected to be energetic members of our postgraduate community, and engage with opportunities to present their work to the wider student and staff body during the period covered by their award. We offer our postgraduates a range of training and development opportunities appropriate to their programme of study.

The scholarship award provides full tuition fees (Home or Overseas level) with an annual stipend for three years full-time or six years part-time study pro rata. The stipend will be set to the UKRI level for 2026-2027. The UKRI level for 2025-2026 is currently £20,780 for full-time students, or the pro rata equivalent for part-time students.


Applications are open to new PhD students (Home and Overseas fee status) commencing study in September 2026 (full-time and part-time study). On campus and PhD by Distance applicants are eligible to apply.

If wishing to commence a new programme of study in September 2026, you must ensure that you have fully completed and submitted your PhD programme application for admission using the University's online system by no later than 19th January 2026.

Applicants must have submitted their fully completed PhD programme application in order to be considered for the scholarship.


Applying

Eligible applicants should complete an online scholarship application.

In order to gain access to the scholarship application system applicants must have applied for admission to the University of Edinburgh. Please note that, following the submission of an application for admission, it can take up to five working days for all system checks to be completed and access to be granted. We highly recommend you apply for the scholarship well in advance of the scholarship deadline date should you encounter any technical difficulties with your application which need resolved.

The online scholarship application form is located in EUCLID and can be accessed via MyEd - our web based information portal at: https://www.myed.ed.ac.uk

When logging in to MyEd, you will need your University User Name (UUN) and password. If you require assistance, please go to: http://www.ed.ac.uk/student-systems/support-guidance

Further guidance on applying for scholarships as a registered student can be found here: Applying for a scholarship | Student Systems | Student Administration

The scholarship deadline is 23:59 (UK Time) on 2nd February 2026. 

 

Frequently Asked Questions:

Scholarships Systems FAQs for Applicants (152.11 KB / PDF)

Please note: the Personal Statement for your scholarship application should clearly state why you are applying for this scholarship, why you feel your research proposal best fits with subject area expertise and what benefit the scholarship will have for your research.  We are looking for evidence on how the PhD programme fits with your career aspirations, how you plan to take best advantage of the opportunities on offer and we are also looking for your thoughts on how you might contribute to the research community within ECA.  Please also consider the selection procedure criteria noted below.

The ECA Selection Panel will score the applications in relation to the following assessment criteria:

  • Qualifications OR relevant professional experience
  • Quality of research proposal, knowledge exchange, public engagement and impact (including academic impact)
  • Preparedness for research
  • Supervisory expertise and research environment
  • Training needs, plans and provision

This is the AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award assessment criteria for 2026.


The ECA Selection Panel will meet in late March 2026 to review the scholarship applications.  All scholarship applicants will be contacted with the outcome by mid-April 2026.

Please note: if successful in obtaining funding from any other University of Edinburgh or Research Council funding source, recipients of the ECA PhD Scholarship must relinquish their ECA PhD Scholarship.

The University reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to amend or withdraw any of the advertised scholarships, without notice.


Please contact the ECA Postgraduate Research Team if you have any questions about the application process. 

If you have an academic enquiry please contact the School Postgraduate Research (PGR) Director for the programme you wish to apply for:


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