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Applications for our 2026 Vice Chancellor's PhD Scholarships have now closed.
ARU is part of the Doctoral Training Alliance (DTA) in Future Societies, a nationwide postgraduate research training initiative from University Alliance – the voice of professional and technical universities. Projects that are aligned to these themes will become part of the DTA.
The Doctoral Training Alliance, developed by a group of Alliance universities, builds on our research strengths and industry-focused ethos and provides a structured-doctoral training environment to produce independent, highly-employable researchers with knowledge, expertise and skills in strategically-important research areas.
The successful applicant for this project will receive a Vice Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship which covers the tuition fees and provides a UKRI equivalent minimum annual stipend for 3.5 years. For 2025/6 this was £20,780 per year. The award is subject to the successful candidate meeting the scholarship terms and conditions. Please note that the University asserts the right to claim any intellectual property generated by research it funds.
Please check the project description – some, but not all, projects require a proposal.
References need to be received by the application deadline to be included with your application. However, we understand you do not have control over how quickly your referee will respond, so we ask our reviewers not to mark down applicants who do not have references included.
No, unfortunately the VC’s PhD Scholarship is for home fee status students only, and we do not offer the option to self-fund the difference.
Please contact us to discuss if you would like to apply for part-time study.
Applications must be submitted by 8 February 2026.
You will find their contact details on the relevant project page.
No, the VC’s PhD Scholarships are only for the projects advertised.
Yes you can. You will need to submit separate applications for each project.
If you are applying for two projects in the same school, please contact [email protected] to discuss, as the system may prevent duplicate applications.
Interviews will be held between 16 and 27 March.
We aim to contact all applicants in the week commencing 2 March.