Black Futures Scholarships | Doctoral College

The University offers a prestigious Black Futures scholarship scheme, for talented UK-domiciled Black and mixed-Black heritage students who want to pursue a PhD at Southampton.

The scholarship is designed to attract excellent students and enrich our academic community by helping to build a diverse community of students and staff that fully reflects the diversity of wider society.

What do the Black Futures Scholarships consist of?

The Scholarship will comprise:

A £20,000 per annum tax-free stipend, for 3.5 years
Full UK fees paid
An annual researcher training and support grant of £1,000 per year, to assist students with their development as a researcher

Who is eligible for the Black Futures Scholarships?

The Black Futures scholarships are open to applicants who:

have identified an academic supervisor who is willing to supervise their PhD project starting in the 2024/2025 academic year
have Black or mixed-Black heritage (see below for full details)
are resident in the UK and eligible for UK fees.

ELIGIBILITY OF CANDIDATES

1. Candidates must have identified an academic supervisor who is willing to supervise their PhD project starting in the 2024-2025 academic year.

2. Candidates must have one of the following categories of ethnicity*:

Black African
Black Caribbean
Black Other
Mixed – White and Black Caribbean
Mixed – White and Black African
Other mixed background (to include Black African, Black Caribbean or Black Other)
*these categories are defined by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). The University must use these categories to enable reporting, however we recognise their inherent limitations.

3. Candidates must be ordinarily resident in the UK and eligible for UK fees.

How do I apply for a Black Futures Scholarship?

To be considered for the Black Futures Scholarships, applicants must:

Step 1: Applicants need to have identified a project supervisor who is willing to supervise them. If you are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering or Medicine (STEM), you can view our list of current PhD projects. If you are applying for an Arts, Humanities or Social Sciences programme, you may need to create your own research proposal - view guidance on how to create your own proposal.

The first step of applying for a PhD project is to contact a potential supervisor to discuss your interest in this scholarship and the possibility of undertaking a PhD project together.

For existing projects, the contact details of the supervisors are listed at the end of the advert. If you would like to propose your own project, you can find out more about our PhD supervisors by typing in the subject you are interested in and looking for the green tick that indicates they are accepting new students. You can view a list of their research interests, published papers and current and previous PhD project supervisions.

Step 2: Apply for the Black Futures funding scheme. This can be done in advance of receiving your official offer of a place of study, but please be aware that only applicants who have received such an offer will be considered for funding.

The deadline for Black Futures Scholarship applications to be received is Friday 23 February 2024, with successful applicants being notified by the end of March 2024.

Apply for a Black Futures scholarship