Eligibility Criteria

• We welcome applicants from eligible social science schools and departments in our seven partner universities (i.e. Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Manchester Metropolitan, Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam, and York).  A full list of eligible schools and departments can be found here.  To be eligible for a WRDTP award, applicants must hold an offer for a PhD place in an eligible school or department, and must be intending to undertake a social sciences research project that is within the ESRC’s remit.
• Applicants do not apply directly to the WRDTP for an award, but are instead nominated by their university.  You should therefore allow sufficient time to liaise with potential supervisors. You should also ensure that you observe any processes or deadlines that the individual department, school or university has in place for assessing applications.  All universities are required to have fair and equitable processes for determining which applicants should be nominated to the WRDTP for consideration.
• As part of the application process, you will be required to complete a WRDTP Studentship Application Form.  Please note that this is a separate process, and is in addition to any form that you may have completed when applying for a place to study a PhD at your chosen university. More details can be found here.
• Applicants must meet the entry requirements of their nominating school or department.  The ESRC also stipulates that: ‘for all studentships, students must have qualifications of the standard of a good honours degree at first- or upper second-class level, from a UK academic higher education institution, or, through a combination of qualifications and/or experience, be able to demonstrate equivalence. In the majority of cases, students will have undertaken an undergraduate course at a recognised UK higher education institution or equivalent international qualification. Prior qualifications may be enhanced to meet these requirements by the acquisition of at least one satisfactorily completed academic year of full-time study or its part-time equivalent (i.e., two years) towards a UK higher degree, if applying for an award without an undergraduate degree’.  Please note that applicants must satisfy their university’s entry requirements AND the ESRC’s minimum threshold.
• The ESRC limits the proportion of awards available to international applicants to 30%, which means that the WRDTP cannot offer any more than 30% of its awards to international candidates each year. To manage this, each of our universities has a limit on the number of international applications that it puts forward to the WRDTP.  If you are an international candidate, you should speak to your school or department to find out about the selection processes that may be in place.