Commonwealth PhD Scholarship

Commonwealth Academic Fellowships are offered for early career academics from developing Commonwealth countries. These fellowships are funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), with the aim of contributing to the UK’s international development aims and wider overseas interests, supporting excellence in UK higher education, and sustaining the principles of the Commonwealth.
You can apply for a Commonwealth Academic Fellowship to spend between three and ten months at any approved UK university or higher education institution. Applications must include a justification for the length of award requested.

Purpose:

To provide early career academics with the opportunity to plan, conduct, or write research, to encourage applications from universities where capacity building is a priority, and to enhance knowledge, skills and contacts in Fellows’ given disciplines.

Intended beneficiaries:

Early career academics (with no less than two years’ and no more than ten years’ postdoctoral academic experience) working in universities in developing Commonwealth countries.

In your application, you are expected to identify one university that you think is the most appropriate to host your fellowship, and to explain your reasons. You must also provide evidence of agreement to host your fellowship from an academic at your chosen university.

Eligibility

To apply for these fellowships, you must:

• Be a Commonwealth citizen, refugee, or British protected person
• Be permanently resident in a developing Commonwealth country
• Be employed by a university in a developing Commonwealth country
• Be available to start your fellowship in the UK on 1 October 2017. Any other start date will be permitted only in exceptional circumstances
• Have been awarded your PhD between two and ten years prior to October 2017
• Not have previously held a Commonwealth Academic Fellowship within five years

AND

• Have been awarded your PhD by a UK university while on a Commonwealth Scholarship

OR

• Be in the employment of your nominating university

Scholarship Worth:

VALUE
Each fellowship provides:

• Approved airfare from your home country to the UK and return at the end of your award (the CSC will not reimburse the cost of fares for dependants, nor usually the cost of journeys made before your award is finally confirmed)
• Research support grant, at a fixed rate according to your subject, payable to your host university
• Stipend (living allowance) at the rate of £1,594 per month, or £1,977 per month for those at universities in the London metropolitan area (rates quoted at 2016-2017 levels)
• Grant towards the cost of preparing reports and other written work
• Arrival allowance
• Study travel grant towards the costs of approved travel within the UK or overseas
• If you are widowed, divorced, or a single parent, child allowance of £448 per month for the first child, and £110 per month for the second and third child under the age of 16, if you are accompanied by your children and solely legally responsible for them. The level of financial support provided through family allowances is under review and subject to change in both eligibility and rate