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Gertrude Aston Bowater Bequest PhD Studentship

Doctoral Training Grant Funding Information

This funding model includes a 36-month funded PhD Studentship, set in-line with the UK Research and Innovation values. For 2025/6, this will be £20,780 per year. The tax-free stipend will be paid monthly. This PhD Studentship also includes a Full-Time Home Fee Scholarship for up to 3 years. The funding is subject to your continued registration on the research degree, making satisfactory progression within your PhD, as well as attendance on and successful completion of the Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice. 

International applicants are reminded that it if they are successful following interview, they are liable to pay the fee difference between the Home and International Tuition Fee Rate. The tuition fees for new doctoral researchers are listed here.

All applicants will receive the same stipend irrespective of fee status.

Application Closing Date:

Midday (UK Time) on Wednesday 17th September 2025 for a start date of 2nd February 2026.

How to Apply

To apply, please follow the below steps:

  1. Complete the BCU Online Application Form.
  2. Complete the Doctoral Studentship Proposal Form in full, ensuring that you quote the project ID. You will be required to upload your proposal in place of a personal statement on the BCU online application form.
  3. Upload two references to your online application form (at least one of which must be an academic reference).
  4. Upload your qualification(s) for entry onto the research degree programme. This will be Bachelor/Master’s certificate(s) and transcript(s).
  5. International applicants must also provide a valid English language qualification. Please see the list of English language qualifications accepted here. Please check the individual research degree course page for the required scores.

Frequently Asked Questions

To help support you to complete your application, please consult the frequently asked questions below:

Project title: Gertrude Ashton Bowater Bequest Scholarship

Project Lead: Supervisory team and project lead will be confirmed as part of the application.

Project ID: GABB: 46483648

Project description:

As part of the generous Gertrude Aston Bowater bequest to Birmingham School of Art in memory of a former student, a full-time PhD studentship is made available every three years. We are now inviting applications for the next studentship which will start in February 2026.

In line with the BCU 2030 strategy, we are particularly keen to consider the ‘city in our mind’ as a provocation for this studentship. We invite proposals that can examine a compelling contemporary question through the context of Birmingham and the West Midlands. With extensive, diverse communities, extraordinary cultural institutions and artist-led organisations, a remarkable global history, analogue and digital productivity, patchworked intersections of rural, urban and suburban and a remarkable growing infrastructural nexus, it offers a multitude of possibilities to think, make and connect granular and macro levels of inquiry.

Proposals are sought from all areas of art practice and theory that fall within our specialist clusters and supervisory expertise: Art Activisms, Contemporary Visual Arts Asia, Lifeworlds, Material Encounters, Creative Pedagogies and Printing History and Culture. Operating within our Research in Art, Architecture and Design Centre (RAAD), our clusters bring together expertise in publics, participation, climate crisis, institutions, care, health, identity, infrastructure, international artistic practices, cultural and material heritage, art writing, pedagogies, bodies, materiality and making. We encourage applicants to look widely at our staff profiles (https://www.bcu.ac.uk/research/art-architecture-and-design) to identify supervisors with the expertise and knowledge to support to their proposals. In addition to our RAAD expertise, we commonly form interdisciplinary supervision teams across the University with colleagues (for example) from social science, architecture, planning and computing, and in relation to the work of STEAMhouse.

The successful applicant will join a lively, welcoming and inclusive PGR community, based in the Margaret St and Parkside Campuses with access to workshops and expert technicians. At the centre of our PGR offer is a PGR studio community in the School of Art, that plays an active role in the life of the Art School. Our PhD students contribute to the vibrant Night School monthly public events, an Art School takeover in the summer and have the capacity to develop proposals for the Margaret St Gallery. Our postgraduate researchers are supported to be outward looking and ambitious and frequently disseminate their research through local, national and international outputs including exhibition and text.

Anticipated findings and contributions to knowledge:

We recognise that in both art practice-based research and art theoretical research, inquiry is driven by the interests and knowledge of the researcher. Within this scholarship we are committed to an open brief where the candidate will define the area of their investigation and potential contribution to knowledge through their proposal. Regardless of the area where findings and contribution will be generated, we expect a high-quality application to clearly identify the context of existing work that the proposed research builds on, and to describe how the research might enrich and extend this.

Person Specification:

We welcome applications for interdisciplinary and practice research as well as for theoretical study in art and design. We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and identities, to avoid perpetuating biases in arts and humanities research.

Whilst we would normally expect candidates to have an undergraduate degree and a Masters’ degree in subjects relevant to their proposed field of study, we recognise that you might have equivalent professional and/or creative experience that is as pertinent to your proposed research. We are looking for candidates who can convince us of their preparedness in terms of the skills, knowledge and experience to undertake the research that they are proposing.

Overseas applicants:

International applicants must also provide a valid English language qualification, such as International English Language Test System (IELTS) or equivalent with an overall score of 7.0 with no band below 6.5.  

Contact:

If you have any questions or need further information, please use the contact details below: 

- For enquiries about the funding or project proposal, please contact: Lisa.metherell@bcu.ac.uk or Becky.Shaw@bcu.ac.uk

- For enquiries about the application process, please contact: research.admissions@bcu.ac.uk