Studentship opportunities

About our studentships

Our studentships, which are pre-defined research topics, provide funding and financial support for exceptional students looking to study for an MPhil/PhD at the University of Derby. Dependent on the individual studentship, successful applicants may be awarded a bursary to cover the full or partial cost of their tuition fees for the duration of the degree. A Postgraduate Research Studentship (PGRS) will be funded for three years.

In addition, for successful fully funded home/overseas applicants, you will also receive an annual, tax-free stipend to support with living costs (currently at £20,780 for 2025/26) which will normally be paid in instalments throughout the year. This will not be the case for partially funded projects, please refer to the individual opportunity for details.

Overseas applicants are encouraged to apply for studentships but are advised to check the project details carefully to assess the level of funding they are eligible for, before submitting an application.

MPhil/PhD research studentships available

If you have any questions relating to a specific project, please contact the individuals named on relevant studentship webpage.

For any other enquiries, please email study@derby.ac.uk

Everything you need to know about how to join us for your PhD.

If you decide to design your own PhD project, you will need to write a research proposal that will form part of your application.

Discover your options if your research project doesn't have funding attached.

• MPhil/PhD Studentship in Resilience to unknown threats: exploring novel threats to food supply networks (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in Resilience and Regeneration for Regional Economies - building regional economic resilience through regenerative economics (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in The Great British Battery: Efficient, Grid-Scale Subsurface Storage of Nuclear Heat for UK Net-Zero Energy (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in Physics-Informed Vibration-Based Structural Health Monitoring of Wheel–Rail Contact Defects (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in Translating 3D Human Mesh Recovery into Clinical Workflows for Markerless Clinical Gait Assessment (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in The LGM project: in vitro modelling of the Lipid metabolism in the Glioblastoma tumour Microenvironment (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in From News to Synthetic Reality: Audience Trust, Geopolitical Narratives and Generative AI in the Global Mediascape (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in Speculative Reproductive Futures: Exploring and Reimagining Reproductive Imaginaries through Creative Co-production (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in Trustworthy Agentic AI for Security Assessment and Resilience in Cyber-Physical Systems (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in Correlation Methods for Inferring Hidden Structure in Spatio-Temporal Crime Data (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in Understanding, assessing and refining risk and desistance factors in those with allegations, or at-risk of, perpetrating child sexual abuse in the community (closes 8 November 2026)
• MPhil/PhD Studentship in From Voice to Influence: Understanding how young disabled people shape local authority Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) decision-making and service improvement (closes 8 November 2026)

Research areas