Fees and funding

The generous Vice-Chancellor's Studentship Award is available for international students starting their doctorate in October 2019. The competition for 2019 entry is now open.

The University of Surrey’s Doctoral College runs an annual competition for the Doctoral College Studentship Award to fund PhD students. The competition for 2019 entry is now open. 

The Marion Redfearn Trust Studentship is available for female postgraduate students starting postgraduate qualifications involving physics, chemistry, maths, electrical engineering or sound recording. Applications for October 2019 are now closed. Further information about the October 2020 studentship will be announced late 2019.

The Wellcome Trust (The Trust) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have developed a new partnership that will provide opportunities for the most promising post-graduate students to undertake international, collaborative four-year PhD training based in both a UK/Republic of Ireland academic institution and the intramural campus of the NIH at Bethesda.

The seven UK Research Councils distribute public money to train new PhD students at UK universities. This funding is referred to as a 'Research Council studentship'. It has two components: a scholarship paid to the university up to the value of a student's PhD fees and a separate bursary paid directly to the student for living costs during their doctorate, also referred to as a stipend.

Some studentships include both components. Others are 'fees-only', with no additional living allowance.

Although the studentship is allocated by the Research Council, you do not apply to the respective Research Council, but to the university.

On this page you will find separate sections above regarding funding for SeNSS (ESRC) and TECHNE (AHRC) studentships at the University of Surrey. In addition, you can find information on Research Council and other studentships in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. 

As a SCENARIO PhD student based at the University of Surrey you will have the opportunity to participate in our leading research.

For available PhD studentships take a look at the SCENARIO NERC Doctoral Training Partnership website which is a joint collaboration between the University of Surrey and the University of Reading.

SeNSS DTP have launched the Call for the Supervisor-led Collaborative Studentship Competition. This is a call for the submission of collaborative research proposals by SeNSS supervisors who wish to apply for an ESRC-funded studentship to participate in their research project. Please see the following documents for further details:

• SeNSS DTP Call for Supervisor-led collaborative studentships
• SeNSS Supervisor-led collaborative studentship Policy
• SeNSS Supervisor-led Collaborative studentship Competition Guidance

The SeNSS Doctoral Training Partnership, funded by the ESRC is a centre of excellence in social science postgraduate research training, and is a partnership between the following Universities: City, Essex, Goldsmiths, Kent, Reading, Roehampton, Royal Holloway, Surrey, Sussex and University of East Anglia. Details of the next SeNSS studentship competition will be published in the Autumn of 2018.

SeNSS Collaborative Studentships

SeNSS is offering six collaborative studentships, each linked to a different research project. We are now seeking to identify the best candidate for each of these six collaborative studentships, to start their studies in October 2018. The research projects are listed below, and links are provided for where to find further information about each project, as well as how apply for one of these studentships. Find out more and apply. 

SeNSS ESRC-funded Post-Doctoral Fellowship

SeNSS is pleased to announce that it will be offering three ESRC-funded Post-Doctoral Fellowships (PDFs) per year, for the next five years, aimed at those in the immediately post-doctoral stage of their career. These PDFs are intended to provide the opportunity for Fellows to consolidate their PhDs through developing publications, their networks, and their research and professional skills. Find out more and apply.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a scheme of jointly-funded studentships between the ESRC South East Network for Social Sciences (SENSS) and the NERC Advanced Research and Innovation in Environmental Sciences (ARIES) DTPs. For clarity, this scheme is separate from the SeNSS collaborative studentship competition. Please see the following documents for further details:

• Joint ARIES-SENSS studentship competition call
• ARIES-SeNSS Joint DTP Studenship proposal form

Open to Home and EU candidates.

As a member of the TECHNE Doctoral Training Partnership, University of Surrey students are eligible to apply for Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) studentships. techne is a consortium of ten universities in London and the South East offering a rich and diverse training programme for doctoral students with a focus on interdisciplinarity and developing career potential both in and beyond higher education. techne’s training programme is enhanced by input and placement opportunities provided by techne’s 15 partner organisations (including the Barbican, Natural History Museum, The National Archives, UNICEF and Science Museum) in the cultural sector. techne’s vision is to produce scholars who are highly motivated and prepared for academic, public or professional life. Students will benefit from a diversity of training opportunities and be able to draw on supervisory expertise from across the Consortium. Find out more.

Studentships are awarded on the basis of the academic excellence of both the candidate and the research proposal. This is an extremely competitive process and only very high calibre candidates are successful.

TECHNE2 has made a strategic decision to offer 20% of its studentships as Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDAs) as a commitment to praxis and interdisciplinarity and building relations with external Partners. CDAs are doctoral studentship projects which are developed as a collaboration between a university and an organisation outside higher education.  The scheme is an equivalent to the AHRC’s previous Collaborative Doctoral Awards scheme which the AHRC now wishes to be supported through Doctoral Training Partnerships such as TECHNE2. Please see the following document for further details:

• TECHNE2 Collaborative Doctoral Awards

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Studentships is now open for October 2019 entry. These studentships are available for high-quality home/EU or international candidates.

Find out more and apply.

The Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences offers a range of studentships to high-quality home/EU or international candidates. Find out more and apply.

The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences offers a range of studentships to high-quality home/EU or international candidates. Find out more and apply.

There are non-means tested loans available for those studying research-based programmes at masters level (such as the MRes and MPhil). For 2017 starts, these loans are up to £10,280 and are available for UK, EEA and Swiss nationals residing in England and EU nationals residing in the EU, EEA or Switzerland. They are open to anyone under 60 who does not have a qualification at masters level or above. To find out more about the postgraduate loan, findamasters has a step-by-step guide to applying.

You can also get further details on the GOV.UK postgraduate loans pages. 

A Postgraduate Doctoral Loan can help with course fees and living costs while you study a postgraduate doctoral course, such as a PhD.

Visit the Government's Doctoral Loans site for more information.