One question I usually get from aspiring PhD scholars is “where can I find PhD scholarships?”. Opportunities abound but sometimes information about where and how to find them isn’t that obvious. From experience being in this ‘scholarship market’ and supporting others in their pursuit, I collated a list of websites I consider useful to find PhD scholarships. Most of the websites allow institutions to directly advertise their projects through paid advertisements. Hence, information and sources are kept up-to-date and verified. I highlighted in red some of the things to be aware of when navigating each website.
- A leading job board for careers in academic, research, science and related professions. Interestingly, it was launched and still currently managed by the University of Warwick in the UK.
- They have a good search field. You can search by discipline, funding type, location or salary. There is a well-detailed description of the project and the funding type
- In my previous blog post, I mentioned how PhD studentship for international students is around 20% of the advertised positions. You can filter by the funding type and narrow down to only the scholarships open to international students
- Alternatively, you could search for all the projects in your discipline. Sometimes you can be lucky that the position is open to International students but they have to pay the difference in fees between the international and the home rate.
- Projects advertised at any given time usually range from 300 – 500 projects.
- In almost all the cases the advertised PhD projects have funding or studentships.
- Mostly Europe based PhD projects and over 90% are in the UK.
- They refer to the website as “a comprehensive guide to PhD studentships and postgraduate research degrees”. I quite agree as they have the largest database among the ones listed with over 8000 PhD projects.
- Though the majority of the projects are in the UK, you still have a good representation of other countries worldwide.
- However, many of the projects are not studentships. It is a large mix of self-funded projects and studentship projects. That’s why I found it more confusing to browse through.
- If you are looking generally for a PhD project, whether it is funded or not, then this is a good place to look as you would have lots of options to think of.
- Sometimes the advertised projects on this website are already expired. Tip: When you come across a project that has no specific deadline (“Applications accepted all year round”) you should ensure to make contact with the potential supervisor (or listed contact person) to ascertain the availability of the project before putting effort into the application.
- A professional network for scientists and researchers that connects over 15 million researchers.
- If you want to find a website that isn’t dominated by UK universities, then this may be a start. You will find a variety of projects offered by other countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Norway. The Netherlands had the most PhD studentship positions as at the time of posting.
- Advertised jobs are not only for PhD positions. That shouldn’t be an issue as the same applies to some of the other websites. However, there is currently no separation or search field for only PhD studentships. You have to manually type in the keyword “PhD” in the search field to narrow down to mostly PhD positions. You have other positions like Research Associate, Post-Doc, research positions in the industry.
- Has only 3 search terms: keyword, region (select) and research area (select).
- Fewer positions. When I checked “PhD” as a search term it returned 77 results. It came down to only 7 results when I narrow down to “computer science” research field.
- A recruitment portal and career network for academics, researchers, and scientists.
- Has a database of around 600 PhD positions with 98% in Europe
- Highest Employer currently is CEA Tech in France with 130 positions
- Has a variety of options and representations from other countries outside Europe
- The job description for some countries was written in their language (like German).
- It is a joint initiative between the European Commission and associated countries to create an environment for the migration of researchers in the European Research Area.
- To navigate, use keyword ‘PhD’ in the search for jobs field. You can also narrow down by specifying your discipline in the ‘Research Field’. I don’t find the ‘Researcher Profile’ option very appealing since the ‘First stage Researcher’ option brings up undesirable positions like ‘Assistant Professor’.
- Gives you ‘where to apply’ option which sometimes leads you to a broken link or takes you to another job website. My advice is that you trace the link back to the institution’s website where the position was originally advertised and apply directly there.
I hope you found the information useful. An additional tip is that all the listed websites offer some sort of career advice or tips for PhD application. Researchgate’s advice is crowd-sourced like Quora. You may search for existing advice that matches your need or seek fresh advice on the platform. Euraxess points you to resources about settling in and working in a European country.
Are there any other websites you have come across or explored in the course of seeking studentships? I would like to hear them.