Humanities Research Centre
- Humanities Research Centre
- How we support our postgraduate students
- Opportunities
- Fellowships
- HRC doctoral fellowships
HRC Doctoral Competition
The HRC offers a number of Doctoral Fellowships to Arts and Humanities PhD students currently in their third full-time year of study (or equivalent part-time) at the University of York.
The criteria for being nominated for a Doctoral Fellowship are intellectual achievement and potential, and the capacity to communicate high-quality research clearly and engagingly to a non-specialist audience.
Finalists for the Doctoral Fellowships will be asked to give a short presentation on their research to staff, students and judges at the HRC Doctoral Fellowships Finals, which takes place annually in May.
HRC Doctoral Competition 2026
This year, the HRC will again be awarding doctoral fellowships to some of our most promising Arts and Humanities PhD students currently in their third year of full-time study (or at an equivalent stage of part-time study).
Each of the Arts and Humanities departments/schools (Archaeology, Architecture, English and Related Literature, History, History of Art, Language and Linguistic Science, Philosophy, School of Arts and Creative Technologies), and the Centre for Medieval Studies may nominate one candidate for an HRC Doctoral Fellowship. The School of Arts and Creative Technologies may nominate two - one from each subject area (TFTI/Music). The candidates will then automatically progress to the HRC Doctoral Competition Finals.
Each candidate will be asked to present their work. There will then be a finals event on Tuesday 19th May, to which all members of the HRC community will be invited to attend. There will be opportunities to discuss the presentations with the candidates, and the fellowships and prizes for the best presentations will be awarded.
The principal criterion for the panel will be the capacity to communicate high-quality research clearly and engagingly to a non-specialist audience.
Subject to a satisfactory presentation, all finalists will be awarded the title of HRC Doctoral Fellow and a bursary of £500 as a small contribution to supporting their fourth year. As well as this, there are cash prizes for the top three presentations.
2026 Timetable
- Applications to reach departments by Tuesday 24 March (it is up to units to decide on this deadline, this is a suggestion).
- Departmental nominations with all supporting documentation to be received by the HRC Administrator (hrc-admin@york.ac.uk) by 12 noon on Tuesday 21 April.
- Doctoral fellowship finalists will be notified by the end of the day on Tuesday 5 May.
- Finals event will take place in H/G21, Heslington Hall, on Tuesday 19 May.