How did you fund your PhD in the UK?
I received a fellowship/studentship from the University of Lincoln where I eventually did my PhD from (Fully funded). I was supposed to work as a GTA (demonstrate for 6 hours/week) as a part of my fellowship.
I was applying from India, so I was looking for funded positions (which included funding for international students) but somehow I found most of the positions were for UK/EU students only. Amongst the ones which were for international students, those were very competitive ( I remember applying for Oxford, Marie Curie ITN- Sheffield, etc.)
Multi-ethnic friends graduating together, in cap and gown. Main focus on girl in middle, looking at camera (17 years, mixed race Hispanic / Asian / Pacific Islander) .
So, I was writing to people to host me for an external fellowship like Commonwealth, and also simultaneously applying for positions advertised on findaphd.com, naturejobs.com, jobs.ac.uk, euraxess,etc.
One such application (for a PhD position at the University of Lincoln went on to be successful after a challenging Skype interview, and I was in Lincoln 4 months later.
I started in November 2013 and submitted my thesis in November 2016, cleared my viva in December 2016. Thanks to funding by University of Lincoln and my supervisor (who played a major role in me finishing on time).
PS- As the fellowship was for 3 years, i supported myself for the extra 3 months i stayed in the UK by doing demonstrations (was able to cover £500) plus my savings from the fellowship.
are a Stem graduate with a 1st class honours from a high ranking university it shouldn’t be that difficult as an International student to secure funding. Eg. When I was at Manchester in 2006 The Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering had full scholarships for international students, but they needed a 1st.
If you want to do a PhD in the Humanities, even British students struggle to get funding.The government takes the view that the 3000th PhD about Shakespeare isn’t going to contribute to the economy long term any more than a graduate who only has a BA in in their humanities subject. So the pool of government money available for PhD’s in the humanities is alot smaller.
So many British PhD humanities students study part time. Universities do however have a few grants for international students doing non Stem PhD’s. I’m not a Humanities graduate so I couldn’t say where best to look for such funding. Apart from stating the obvious that universities with strong humanities departments would be the obvious places to look.
Eg Oxford, Cambridge, The LSE, UCL, Queen Mary College, Edinburgh, Durham, St. Andrews, York, UEA, Warwick, Royal Holloway, King’s College London, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham , Advanced Studies Institute University of London, Sussex, Liverpool.