Historic England and the University of Leeds have announced a fully funded four-year Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from 1 October 2026, providing full tuition fees with a tax-free maintenance allowance, with applications open to 1 May.
The partners write:
Historic England and the University of Leeds are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded four-year Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from 1 October 2026 under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships (CDP) scheme. This award provides full tuition fees with a tax-free maintenance allowance that matches UKRI rates (GBP 21,805 in 2026/27).
Full description
From historic hospital buildings to medical museums, England’s health heritage has a powerful role to play in supporting wellbeing — but we don’t yet know how. This PhD project will uncover how these unique sites can draw on their own histories and collections to benefit communities now and in the future.
This project will be jointly supervised by researchers at the University of Leeds (James Stark and Helen Graham) and heritage professionals at Historic England (Linda Monckton and Simon Taylor).
The student will be expected to spend time at both Historic England and the University of Leeds, as well as becoming part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships (CDP) scheme.
The studentship can be studied either full or part-time (UK applicants only).
We encourage applications from a diverse range of people, from different backgrounds and career stages. Researchers from Global Majority backgrounds are particularly welcomed. UK black and minority ethnic (BME) researchers are currently under-represented in our Postgraduate Research (PGR) community, and we would therefore also encourage applications from UK BME candidates. All scholarships will be awarded on the basis of merit.
Application deadline: 5pm (UK time), Friday 1 May 2026
See more details on AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships (CDP) scheme.
