£1 million search for fresh talent

The University of St Andrews is to invest over £1 million to provide 120 new postgraduate scholarships in the Arts and Divinity.

The new scholarship programme offers PhD students almost £9000 each over 3 years and will prompt an international drive to recruit the most promising and gifted research scholars in subjects as diverse as Terrorism and Political Violence, Economics and Scottish History.

The investment in scholarships will be accompanied by the provision of new postgraduate residential accommodation in St Andrews and the addition of up to 160 individual postgrad desk spaces throughout the Faculty of Arts.

In November 2004, the University announced a similarly large investment to provide 100 undergraduate scholarships worth up to £15,000 each to Scottish domiciled students who had attended a Scottish secondary school or further education college.

The most recent Research Assessment Exercise placed St Andrews among the top ten UK research institutions with all of its academic schools held to be of international status and 72% of its academic staff ranked in the highest category.

Research awards to St Andrews in 2003/04 totalled over £25 million. The University currently has 1065 postgraduate students.

“We are one of Europe’s most research intensive universities and we believe this investment in postgraduate scholarships will allow us to recruit some of the best scholars from all the world,” said University Principal, Dr Brian Lang.

“We are fortunate to have many academics of international reputation and standing in St Andrews. By developing new facilities and significant financial support for postgraduates we are strengthening our position as one of the leading universities in which to conduct high quality research.

“Scottish higher education has a responsibility to nurture and encourage the growth of a sustainable knowledge economy.

“We need to be able to seek out the best brains in the world to help us achieve that and a generous postgraduate scholarship programme is a means of ensuring that socio-economic factors do not inhibit our search for fresh talent.”

Postgraduate scholarships will be available in Art History, Classics, Divinity, Economics and Finance, English, Geography, History, International Relations, Management and Business Studies, Modern Languages, Philosophy and Social Anthropology.

Full details can be found at www.st- and.ac.uk/admissions/newphds.shtml

The new programme of scholarships will provide 46 places in 2005, 46 in 2006 and 28 in 2007. Applications must be received by April 30th 2005.

ENDS

Issued by Beattie Media On behalf of the University of St Andrews For more information, contact Niall Scott – 07711 223 062.