Monday 18-03-2019 - 11:46

Whether it’s funding for tuition fees or living costs, the provision of funding for postgraduate studies is of the utmost importance in ensuring students are able to study at a higher level. Tuition fees have limited regulation compared to those of undergraduates, and government loans have only recently been established for home students, while international students are left having to find tens of thousands of pounds before even considering living costs.

A patchwork of bursaries and scholarships exists at international, national, University and also college levels, but finding them can often be difficult with narrow eligibility criteria, and competition fierce. For instance, you might well be able to find a funded PhD in the sciences if you agree to look into a specific project for a given company, but if you want to pursue your own interests in the arts you're very likely having to find the cash yourself. Where the demand for PhDs is set by external actors in this way, barriers are created to novel research for its own sake by talented but cash-strapped researchers.

 

We're not going to change that overnight, but we can look at factors that are in the University's control to make life easier for the postgraduates here at Durham. That's why I invite you to our next Postgraduate Forum on Thursday to discuss issues not only of general funding availability, but how we support students through their studies. We'll examine how payments are administered and if anything could be done better, whether the financial support available to students is fulfilling its purpose, how students fund their living costs outside of University funding or scholarships, and other funding-based issues.

 

Completing a postgraduate degree takes great commitment in time, money and effort. We each deserve to be supported in what is frequently a labour of love for our discipline, and finances play an important part of that. So let's look at the state of play of funding on Thursday, and see if we can make postgraduate lives that little bit better.

 

If you'd like to join the discussion on postgrad funding, and listen to specialist speakers in this area share their thoughts, make sure to sign up to Postgraduate Forum on Thursday 21 March. There'll be free pizza!