Postgraduate funding
The School of History is pleased to be able to offer a number of scholarships which contribute to the fees or maintenance for postgraduate study.
The School of History is a member of the AHRC-funded Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities and the ESRC-funded Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. Students holding an offer from St Andrews are eligible to apply for studentships administered by either Scottish Graduate School, and the MSc in Economic and Social History is accredited by the ESRC for 1+3 funding.
Students wishing to be considered for funding should note in particular the importance of submitting an application for a place to study well in advance of any funding deadline (further scheme-specific information is available under the drop-down menus and links below).
Funding catalogue
If you are a new applicant to the University of St Andrews, you will receive an email with instructions on how to access the funding catalogue.
- Applicants to postgraduate taught courses will be provided with login details for the ‘My Application’ portal with access to 'My Scholarships and Funding'.
- Applicants to foundation and postgraduate research courses will receive a link directly to scholarships and funding.
If you are a current student at St Andrews, you can access scholarships and funding through MySaint, located under ‘My Applications’.
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Students interested in applying for any of the following funding schemes (except for students solely applying for ESRC Doctoral Studentships) must apply through the School of History Postgraduate Research Scholarship Gateway (accessed through the University’s Scholarships and Funding Catalogue) by 5 pm (UK time) 8 December, 2023. Please note the ESRC Doctoral Studentship has an earlier deadline.
- AHRC Doctoral Studentships
- ESRC Doctoral Studentships: Applicants must also upload their ‘stage one’ application and references to SGSSS Apply by the earlier deadline of 5pm UK time on 1 December 2023. See also the University’s information page on ESRC funding.
- Dorothy B. Miller Scholarship: Full (Home or Overseas) tuition fees and annual stipend at Research Council rates (£18,622 in 2023/4).
- School of History-University of St Andrews tuition fee scholarships (handsels): the School offers a limited number of these scholarships, which cover the fees of any student who is selected, regardless of their nationality.
Applicants must have received an offer for a place to undertake doctoral research at the School of History at St Andrews by the deadline. It is, therefore, strongly recommended to apply for a place to study by early- to mid-November; this will also give referees sufficient time to submit their references. Applicants should make sure their referees understand that they are to write their references with the scholarship competition in mind, and not simply admission. Applications for a place submitted close to the funding deadline may not be processed in time for an application for funding to be feasible.
Applicants should then submit a separate funding application to the School of History Postgraduate Research Scholarship Gateway. Please note that:
- You must complete the PhD Scholarship proposal form (Word) for entry in 2024-25, taking note of the PhD scholarship proposal form help sheet (Word). Remember that it will be read by a committee of historians of different specialisms, not all of whom will be familiar with the relevant subject area.
- Your uploaded qualification documents should include transcripts of completed and ongoing degrees (rather than final degree certificates). If you are currently a Masters student, please also provide a list of all coursework marks gained so far.
- To facilitate the uploading of references for the scholarship application, please upload a Word document with the referee details as a placeholder (otherwise you will not be able to submit the scholarship application). References will either be uploaded by the School if referees already provided the requested reference when applicants applied for a place to study, or referees need to send their reference to pghist@st-andrews.ac.uk. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that all references are submitted by the deadline.
The deadline for funding applications is 5pm (UK time) on 8 December 2023. Late applications will not be accepted.
We encourage all applicants to explore the other sources of funding, administered by the University, described on the University’s Scholarships page.
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For language training support grants in 2024-25, please see the relevant section on the School's postgraduate student pages. (this page is currently only accessible to current students)
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The School offers one-year awards to students pursuing MLitt and MSc programmes in the School of History. These awards will offer the cash equivalent of one year's home fees, cannot be held in conjunction with other awards offering full fees and maintenance, and will normally be open to candidates without a previous postgraduate degree in a related field.
The deadline for M Litt/MSc Award applications is Friday 19th April 2024.
Current information on scholarships can be found on the University of St Andrews scholarships page.
Full details will be sent, with log-in instructions to the new funding application system, once you have been offered a place to study here by the Admissions team.
There is a separate procedure for study applications. -
Begum Nahid Iskander Mirza Postgraduate Scholarship 2022
The Institute of Iranian Studies will be awarding one Begum Nahid Iskander Mirza Scholarship in 2022.
This Scholarship is open to outstanding students (Home/EU/International) applying for the MLitt in Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews in the academic year 2022/23. All students who have been offered a place on this programme by the closing date of the School of History’s MLitt Scholarship Competition (23rd April 2022) will be eligible for this Scholarship which is worth £4000, to offset against fees. It may not be held in conjunction with any other awards made by the School of History offering full fees and maintenance. The award of this Scholarship will be made on the basis of academic merit. There is no separate application form.
How to apply for this MLitt scholarship
The Begum Nahid Iskander Mirza Scholarship competition is administered by the School of History.
The application deadline for the School of History MLitt Scholarship competition is 23rd April 2022.
Note that full details on applying for MLitt scholarships via the School of History will be sent once you have been offered a place to study here by the Admissions team.
How to apply for a place on the MLitt in Iranian Studies
To find out how to apply for 2022 entry to the MLitt Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews, please visit the School of History prospective student page.
Further enquiries can be sent to the MLitt in Iranian Studies Convenor, Dr Tim Greenwood, email twg3@st-andrews.ac.uk
General details about postgraduate life and study at St Andrews can be found on the University of St Andrews prospective postgraduate student pages.
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The Berenike Walburg Travel Scholarship competition is open to doctoral students studying either Mediaeval or Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews. Scholarships are funded by the Berenike Walburg Memorial Fund and are administered through the School of History.
Berenike Walburg (1984-2012) graduated from the University of St Andrews with an MA Honours degree in Medieval History and Archaeology in 2007. The following year, she was awarded her MLitt in Mediaeval History and embarked upon doctoral research at St Andrews. Her doctoral thesis ‘The Persian Gateway: International Trade between the Seventh and Ninth Centuries’, supervised by Tim Greenwood, was just months away from completion when she was tragically killed in a road traffic accident on 1 December 2012. The Berenike Walburg Memorial Fund was established in her memory to assist postgraduate students of Mediaeval and Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews.
In her memory, up to two Scholarships will normally be awarded each year to cover the anticipated travel costs of a doctoral student incurred in the course of a research trip. This is defined as including, but not limited to, visits to archives, archaeological sites and other repositories, participation and attendance at conferences and workshops. The Scholarship will not cover or contribute to accommodation costs, registration fees or living expenses. Applications must be made in advance of the trip; retrospective applications will not be considered.
Only postgraduate students formally admitted to the University of St Andrews to pursue PhD research in Mediaeval or Middle Eastern History, either full-time or part-time, will be eligible to apply for a Berenike Walburg Travel Scholarship. Successful applicants may not reapply for a second award.
All those wishing to enter the 2024 competition are invited to submit their applications by 30 November 2023 by completing the 2024 Berenike Walburg Scholarship Application Form (Word). Applicants will be invited to outline their doctoral research and how the proposed trip will advance that research. They will also be asked to demonstrate financial need. The applicant’s supervisor will be required to give their consent and support for the proposed trip in writing.
Scholarships will be awarded on the basis of academic merit and financial need by an Award Committee chaired by the School of History’s Director of Postgraduates and at least two other members of staff in the School of History with expertise in Mediaeval and Middle Eastern History. The decision of the Award Committee is final.
All awards are subject to the advice on travel issued by the University of St Andrews, including the completion of any required risk assessment. Travel may only be undertaken in accordance with current Government guidelines at the time of the proposed trip. Once an award has been made, it may be claimed up to 18 months from the date of the award without resubmission of an application.
Not later than one month after returning to St Andrews from the research trip, recipients of a Scholarship will be required to submit a report to the Director of Postgraduates, outlining their activities on the research trip and how this trip has benefitted their research project. This will be publicized through the School of History as well as being distributed to all the donors to the Fund. Recipients are also required to acknowledge receipt of a Berenike Walburg Travel Scholarship in their PhD thesis.
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Communicating the Law in Europe (COMLAWEU) Scholarship 2024
Two fully funded PhD studentships are available at the University of St Andrews to work as part of the ERC-selected/UKRI-funded project ‘Communicating the Law in Europe, 1500-1750’, under the supervision of the Principal Investigator, Dr Arthur der Weduwen. The project investigates how law was communicated in early modern Europe (c. 1500-1750), and what impact this had on European society.
The PhD studentships will begin in September 2024, will be based in the School of History at the University of St Andrews (with significant periods to be spent on research abroad), and will last for four years.
These PhD studentships offer the successful applicants the exciting prospect of combining the pursuit of an independently researched thesis exploring a particular dimension of legal and political communication in early modern Europe with the opportunity to work collaboratively within a research team and to contribute to co-authored publications and the organisation of scholarly conferences.
The successful applicants will have a first class/high 2.1 (or equivalent) undergraduate degree in History, or a closely related discipline, and should have completed an appropriate taught-postgraduate degree (or equivalent) by September 2024. The PhD students will also have excellent working knowledge of at least one European language other than English, which will correspond to the linguistic requirements for their case study. The working language of the project team will be English and in both cases the PhD theses will be written in English.
The scholarship covers the successful students’ full-time home/international tuition fees, pays an annual stipend at UKRI rates (£18,622 p.a. in 2023-2024), and includes an additional research budget allowance to cover expenses related to archival research and conference attendance (c. £3,500 per year). The studentship is offered for 4 years.
The project
The ‘Communicating the Law in Europe, 1500-1750’ project has been awarded a grant of €1.4 million by the European Research Council and is funded as part of the UKRI’s Frontier Research Guarantee scheme. It will run for five years, from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2028, and is led by the Principal Investigator, Dr Arthur der Weduwen.
The COMLAWEU project is the first to investigate comparatively how law was communicated to citizens and subjects by the authorities in early modern Europe (1500-1750). It pursues an original comparative study of the publication and circulation of municipal, regional and national law, encompassing oral communication, ceremonial proclamations and the employment of criers, as well as the affixing, distribution and sale of law texts, in manuscript and printed form. Based on extensive archival research, this project will seek to establish for the first time to what extent the increasing body of law that was issued in early modern Europe was made publicly available, and in what forms. The project seeks to add a new and much-needed perspective to the study of European politics in a critical era of state formation, framing the communication of law as an essential stabilising factor in an era of highly participatory but undemocratic politics. This project will offer multiple comparative frameworks through which the communication of law will be studied, including Protestant and Catholic states, urban and rural areas, and empires, national kingdoms and city-states. With the aid of such a comparative lens, it is an overarching aim of the project to analyse how the public dissemination of law shaped early modern civic society and influenced political participation and accountability.
The project team, led by the PI and comprising two postdoctoral research assistants and two PhD students, will work collaboratively, using a series of comparative case studies based on European regions to explore and reveal the complex ways in which European authorities communicated with their citizens and subjects.
In particular, the project is guided by the following research questions:
- How was law communicated in early modern Europe? To what extent did discussion surrounding the communication of law take place?
- Who was involved in the act of communication, and who were the intended audiences?
- What norms of communication were common to all areas of Europe, and how did political, social, economic and confessional differences shape the communication of law?
- What was the impact of print on the codification and dissemination of law?
- How did different strategies of communication (formal proclamations, the use of criers, the affixing of ordinances, the sale of law texts) impact upon the reception and implementation of law?
- How did information on laws circulate, and to what extent was the circulation of law texts commercialised?
- How were strategies of law communication appropriated by those who were formally excluded from political power?
How to apply
Prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to contact Dr Arthur der Weduwen in advance of making an application at adw7@st-andrews.ac.uk. Applicants should direct their application to Elsie Johnstone, Postgraduate Administrator for the School of History, at pghist@st-andrews.ac.uk. The deadline for applications is 15 March 2024.
The following documentation will be required to apply:
- Completed COMLAW EU Project Information and Application Form (Word).
- CV (no more than 2 pages).
- Sample of written work (c. 2,000 words; this may be an extract).
- Transcript of undergraduate and masters (completed and ongoing) degree results.
- Two academic references.
- Please refer to the COMLAWEU PhD Studentship Information Form (Word) for more information.
Applicants will be informed of the outcome of their application by the end of April 2024. Candidates may be invited to interview (to take place online) if shortlisted.
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General information on sources of funding can be found on the Postgraduate Studentships website. In addition, the following links may be useful:
- The Association for Computers and the Humanities
- The Bibliographical Society
- British Federation of Women Graduates
- Burnwynd History and Art Limited
- Carnegie Trust
- Economic History Society
- Funds for Women Graduates
- German Academic Exchange Service
- German Historical Institute London
- German History Society
- Institute of Historical Research
- Leverhulme Trust
- Max Planck Institute for European Legal History
- The Printing Historical Society
- Royal Historical Society
- Royal Historical Society – Masters Scholarships
- Russell Trust Awards
- Scottish Historical Review Trust
- Society for Army Historical Research
- Society for the Social History of Medicine
- Society for the Social History of Medicine
- Society for the Study of French History
- Wellcome Trust
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The University offers a 10% discount on postgraduate research tuition fees to certain groups of former students starting a postgraduate research programme with the University of St Andrews.
Further details about this scheme can be found on the Postgraduate Research Discount page