White Rose Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership
The Economic and Social Research Council White Rose DTP is a regional consortium of seven universities with social science research excellence and involves the universities of Sheffield, Leeds and York as well as Bradford, Hull, Manchester Metropolitan and Sheffield Hallam.
Important information about deadlines
Although the deadline is Jan 22, applicants must first be shortlisted by their chosen departments to be eligible. This will involve submitting a draft funding application by an earlier internal department deadline (see department deadlines below). If you are interested in applying for this funding opportunity you MUST contact your chosen department first to ensure you are following any internal deadlines/processes.
Description
The WRDTP has been accredited by the ESRC to offer PhD scholarships across a range of schemes, available for doctoral research students commencing their studies in September 2025. The following awards will be open for application from students:
- Up to 35 Pathway Awards available across the DTP incorporating 2 Interdisciplinary Research Awards and 2 WRDTP/Stuart Hall Foundation Awards for Black British applicants.
- Up to 2 WRDTP Advanced Quantitative Methods (AQM) Awards
- Up to 2 WRDTP Advanced Data Analytics (ADA) Awards
There will also be up to 8 Collaborative Awards made to supervisory teams for projects involving collaboration with an external partner. Supervisors will apply for these awards, and those projects that are awarded funding will be open for applications from students in early Spring 2025.
Further information about each of the award schemes can be found on the WRDTP website, and in the guidance documents below. All awards are available on a +3.5, +3.75 or a 1+3.5 basis, and can be held full-time or part-time.
Application guidance and character limits
- WRDTP Pathway, AQM and ADA Awards - Guidance for Applicants
- WRDTP Pathway/AQM/ADA Application Form
- WRDTP Studentships 2025/26 - call for nominations
Scholarship benefits
Being part of the WRDTP will give you access to:
- a wealth of supervisory expertise across the social sciences
- a wide range of training opportunities particularly focused on maximising the social and economic benefits of your research
- a network of students and researchers studying in your discipline across Yorkshire
- a network of interdisciplinary contacts and the opportunity to develop expertise working across disciplines.
Open to International (including EU), International (non-EU) and UK (home) students.
All students are eligible to receive a full award, to include a stipend and fees at the home level.
Application
You must have applied online for a place on an appropriate academic programme first, before applying for the scholarship.
Please note that if you intend to apply for a 1+3 studentship (see below, Types of Scholarship) then you must apply for both the MA in Social Research (for 2025/6 entry) and the relevant PhD programme (for 2026/7 entry).
You don't need to complete the form all at once - you can save your progress, and a link will be emailed to you so you can continue at a later time. Once you have submitted your application, a copy will be emailed to you for your records.
The PG Admissions team will be able to help you with this process, should you have any questions:
+44 (0)1904 322142
Application deadline: Wednesday 22 January 2025, 5pm GMT
How to apply
The application process is managed internally by departments. You should seek out advice from your supervisor in the first instance if you are interested in applying for the competition.
1) Applicants are asked to apply for a place on the PhD programme in the department/school of their choice first.
2) Each department has an earlier internal deadline by which prospective applicants must have applied for a place on the PhD programme in order to be eligible for consideration for ESRC WRDTP funding. Some departments will also require you to submit a draft funding application for the ESRC WRDTP scheme. You must contact the department to check if this is the case: they will provide you with information about how and when to complete their required applications, including draft application forms.
If you have any queries around the deadline, and whether you are required to submit a draft funding application, please contact the Postgraduate Research Administrator of your chosen department directly for details on this earlier deadline. They will also be able to supply you with a word version of the application form.
3) Following this internal department deadline, departments will shortlist their PhD applicants and invite them to complete a full application for the ESRC competition.
Departments will share an application form link directly with the applicants that they have shortlisted for the ESRC Competition.
Once the application form link has been received by the shortlisted applicants from their chosen department, they will have until 17:00, 22 January 2025 to make their formal application to the ESRC competition through the application form link.
All ESRC scholarships are subject to the terms and conditions set out in the ESRC funding guidelines (esrc.ukri.org).
Continued receipt of all scholarships is conditional upon satisfactory academic progress. We may request academic progress updates from your supervisor(s).
Data protection
Any data we require will be held and used in accordance with our privacy policy.
- School for Business and Society - 6th December 2024
- Department of Education - 13th December 2024
- Department of Health Sciences - 13th December 2024
- Department of History - 13th December 2024
- Department of Language and Linguistic Science - 13th December 2024
- Department of Sociology - 13th December 2024 17:00 GMT
- Please contact sociology-pg@york.ac.uk for application guidance.
- Law School - 13th December 2024
- Department of Politics and International Relations - 13th December 2024
- Department of Economics - 20th December 2024
- Department of Psychology - 8th January 2025
Awards on offer are:
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- Applicants without a social science Masters degree will normally be funded for 4.5 years, undertaking a 1 year MA Social Research followed by 3.5 year PhD.
- Applicants who already have a social science Masters degree, but have fewer than 60 credits of M-level social science research training will normally be funded for 3.75 years to undertake an integrated PGCert/PhD.
- Applicants with a social science Masters degree and with 60 or more credits of M-level social science research training will normally be funded for 3.5 years to undertake a PhD.
The following schools/departments are eligible to participate in nominations for a pathway award:
- Economics
- Education
- Environment and Geography
- Health Sciences
- History
- Language and Linguistic Science
- Politics
- Psychology
- School for Business and Society
- Sociology
- York Law School
The above departments can then nominate in any of the following Thematic Interdisciplinary Training pathways.
You should discuss which theme is the best fit for your research proposal with your academic department.
If you are a current ESRC White Rose Social Sciences DTP studentship holder, you can find further information and guidance on the Information for current studentship holders webpage hosted by the White Rose DTP.