A postgraduate loan is available to Home fee payers to help you pay for your Master’s (MA/MPhil) course.

For more information about postgraduate loans, visit Student Finance England's (SFE’s) dedicated student finance zone on the Student Room. If you are an EU national, you should check your eligibility for a postgraduate loan before applying.

The University of Bristol is offering a number of scholarships to talented UK postgraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds.

More information regarding this opportunity for the 2024/25 academic year will be found here.

Chevening is the UK government’s international awards scheme aimed at developing global leaders.

Deadline: Please check link for country specific deadlines.

Information for the 2024/25 academic year to follow.

Further updates will be found here.

We are keen to enable talented linguists to study for a career in the language industry at a time when it is at its most dynamic. The MA Translation scholarship provides a partial fee waiver worth GBP 5,000 each for two incoming new MAT students. All applicants to the MA Translation are eligible to apply to the scholarship. The scholarship can only be awarded to applicants who meet the programme eligibility criteria with a confirmed place on the programme by the date the outcome of scholarship applications is announced. Full eligibility criteria and a link to the application form can be found here.

Deadline: Applications close on Saturday 1 June 2024 at 12 midday (UK time).

The University of Bristol and the Faculty of Arts are pleased to be able to offer a number of PhD Scholarships to candidates commencing their PhD research in September 2024 that demonstrate exceptional research and teaching potential.

We will also be offering a number of Research Scholarships with Gratuate Teaching Assistantship (GTA) to cadidates demonstrating and articulating a clear teaching philosophy/vision.

Additionally, we will have scholarships available for UK-domiciled, Home fee status applicants of Black and mixed-Black heritage, as well as co-tutelle scholarships with Macquarie University, Australia and Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, France, and a Research Scholarship in association with University of Cape Town, South Africa.

These scholarships are renewable for up to four years (full-time) or eight years (part-time), subject to satisfactory progress in the Scholar's research project and/or teaching.

Further details (including eligibility and funding awarded) can be found on our Bristol Postgraduate Research Scholarships web page.

Deadline: CLOSED

The University of Bristol has a collaborative agreement with the China Scholarship Council to further the development of research collaborations between the UK and Chinese Universities and Research Institutions.

Successful candidates will receive tuition fees to cover the full period of the PhD, a stipend, a round-trip international airfare, visa and passport fees and high levels of research and professional skills training, coordinated by the Bristol Doctoral College.

Please click here for more information on this fantastic opportunity.

Deadline: CLOSED

The SWW DTP will be awarding a number of doctoral studentships in the Arts and Humanities for entry in September 2024. SWW DTP studentships are for three years as standard (or part-time equivalent).

In response to the new UKRI eligibility criteria, University of Bristol is pleased to announce that it will be offering International fee discounts for successful UKRI applicants. The fees will be discounted to the home fees level. This approach ensures that students regardless of nationality or financial means will be able to apply for our UKRI studentships (including those administered by the SWW DTP). Successful applicants will receive a fully-funded studentship and will not be charged the international fee difference.

Applications for September 2024 open on Monday 27 November 2023. Please apply for the studentship via the SWW DTP website. These scholarships are for students commencing their studies in September 2024, as well as those that have already commenced doctoral study. Please check the SWW DTP Edigibility Guidlines before applying.

Deadline: CLOSED

Opportunity Bristol provides financial support to UK students from Black backgrounds to undertake a research-related Masters degree (e.g. MPhil, MRes, etc.).

Opportunity Bristol offers up to six scholarships to Black students. It provides funding for research-focused Masters programmes and will help successful awardees to gain the research skills and experience needed to apply for funded doctoral research opportunities in the future.

Applications are now open for applicants who want to start their studies in the 2024/25 academic year. For more information on eligibility criteria and how to apply, please see the Opportunity Bristol web page.

Deadline: CLOSED

Opportunity Bristol Application Support Workshops are being offered to provide applicants with further information and practical advice on completing an Opportunity Bristol application. They will take place on:

• Wednesday 15 November 2023
• Wednesday 13 December 2023
• Wednesday 17 January 2024

Interested applicants can sign up here: Book an application support workshop

The Zutshi-Smith Scholarship covers the cost for an Indian student to do a PhD course and is available for up to four years of study in all disciplines. It covers:

• all University of Bristol tuition fees
• a yearly living stipend in line with UKRI funding levels (£18,622 in 2023/24)
• one return flight to/from India
• an allowance for research costs.

Eligibility: You can apply for this scholarship if:

• you have received an offer from the University of Bristol to study for a PhD course
• you are ordinarily resident in India, and preference will be given to applicants of Kashmiri origin
• applications are welcome from students in all disciplines currently represented at the University of Bristol
• applicants may also be current students.

How to apply: State on your programme application form that you want to be considered for funding, including this scholarship. Your programme lead will then complete a nomination form (Office document, 79kB) and send it to your PGR director to put you forward.‌

Deadline: The deadline for 2024/25 applicants to have sent their forms to the relevant PGR director is Thursday 18 April 2024. Your PhD application must be submitted in advance of this deadline in order to be considered.

The Zutshi-Smith scholarship usually runs once every two years. It will not be running in 2025/26, but it is expected to run in the 2026/27 academic year.

Applications are invited for a full-time PhD studentship in Social Anthropology at the University of Bristol in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology. The studentship will form part of a UKRI Funded (ERC selected) Project entitled INFRACURSIONS: Deregulated Infrastructures of Extraction in Rainforest Frontiers and will work under the supervision of Dr Amy Penfield.

INFRACURSIONS aims to develop a comparative study of ‘incursion economies’ defined as deregulated economies based on invasion of global frontiers and that result in environmental destruction. The study will focus on clandestine land grabbing, illegal logging, and prospector mining in Amazon frontiers and will gather data from anthropology, geography/GIS, and social policy to answer the following questions:

1. What historical factors have led to incursions and what are the environmental impacts?
2. What are the motivations and experiences that underpin incursion economies?
3. What social and technical arrangements facilitate the existence of incursions?
4. How do incursion economies intersect?

Data collection will take place in Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, using predominantly actor-centred methodologies.

Location: Department of Anthropology and Archaeology
Eligibility: Home and Overseas students
Start date: September 2024
More information (including how to apply): ERC - Infracursions PhD Studentship Further Details (PDF, 124kB)

Deadline: Friday 3 June at 23:59 BST. Interviews will take place in mid-to-late June.

Applications are invited for a UKRI-funded PhD studentship to be held in the Department of English at the University of Bristol.  This is an exciting opportunity to be part of the ERC-selected and UKRI-funded research project, ‘Mapping the March: Medieval Wales and England, c. 1282–1550’, which began in May 2023 and runs until May 2028.  The studentship will be supervised by the Principal Investigator, Professor Helen Fulton, with an appropriate second supervisor at the University of Bristol.  This full-time studentship, which is funded for 3.5 years at standard UKRI rates, will begin on 1 October 2024.

The research topic of the PhD will be designed by the student in discussion with Professor Fulton. It will be closely related to the objectives of ‘Mapping the March’, which are to produce cultural and literary histories of the medieval March of Wales, alongside a prosopography and digital maps of the Marcher lordships.  The PhD topic is likely to be drawn from one or more of the following fields: comparative literature, linguistics, multilingualism, and manuscript studies.  The research will be situated in relation to the March of Wales between 1282 and 1550.

Location: Department of English Literature
Eligibility: Home students only
Start date: September 2024
More information (including how to apply): ERC and UKRI - Mapping the March studentship further details (PDF, 182kB)

Deadline: Tuesday 7 May at 5pm BST.  Interviews will be held in person at the University of Bristol on Thursday 23 May.

The University of Bristol, Prifysgol Aberystwyth University, Amgueddfa Cymru—Museum Wales and Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru—National Library of Wales are pleased to announce the availability of a fully-funded Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from October 2024 under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) Scheme.

The project will be jointly supervised by Grace Brockington (Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Bristol), Nicholas Thornton (Head of Modern and Contemporary Art at Museum Wales), Nia Daniel (Head of Archives at the National Library of Wales) and Samuel Raybone (Lecturer in Art History at Aberystwyth University).

The Welsh artist Augustus John (1878–1961) was a leading figure in British and European modernist movements. This studentship will critically re-evaluate him as a figure of his time and expand the discussion about his significance today. John built his reputation on representing marginalised groups, and recent scholarship has critiqued his patriarchal masculinity, appropriation of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller culture, and exoticizing attitude towards Jamaican people of colour. However, his efforts to learn both English and Welsh dialects of the Romani language suggest genuine interest; and his Jamaica portraits convey ‘the heart, warmth and soul of the characters’ (Morgan 2022). The studentship presents a unique opportunity to confront these issues, bringing new material to bear on debates that are critical to revisionist histories of modernisms and changing perceptions of John. 

Location: Department of History of Art at University of Bristol, Prifysgol Aberystwyth University, Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales and Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru - National Library of Wales
Eligibility: Home and Overseas students
Start date: September 2024
More information (including how to apply): AHRC CDP Augustus John studentship further details (PDF, 178kB)

Deadline: Friday 31 May at 5pm BST.  Interviews will be held virtually on Thursday 27 June and Friday 28 June.