£252,000 to encourage St Andrews scholars

Postgraduate researchers at the University of St Andrews will benefit from up to £252,000 in scholarships as the Wolfson Foundation announces a £2.2 million renewal of the Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarships in the Humanities from 2018.

The University of St Andrews is one of only nine universities to win a share of the funding, which will support three St Andrews PhD candidates with fully funded fees and a stipend for three years.

The Foundation has committed more than £13 million to over 200 doctoral researchers at UK universities since the programme launched in 2012. This is the first time the University of St Andrews has been recognised by the awards. Partner universities are carefully selected based on the quality of their research in the fields of history, languages and literature.

Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Sally Mapstone said: “These scholarships not only provide financial support to enable some of the best young academics to pursue studies that might otherwise have been unaffordable, but they also assert the fundamental importance of the humanities. I look forward to welcoming our first Wolfson Postgraduate Scholars in the Humanities to a University environment that is ranked at the top in the UK for teaching and student experience and outperforms the UK sector on research impact, despite its comparatively small size.”

The Foundation, which has a long history of support to higher education, launched the Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarships in the Humanities in 2012 in response to concerns about funding for the humanities and the impact of increased undergraduate student debt on postgraduate studies.

“Our aim is not only to support some of the most exciting students, but also to make a statement about the value of the humanities,” explains Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation.

“We believe that high quality academic research in this field is of critical importance to British society. The scholarships have been deliberately designed as the most generous available. They also include a substantial travel allowance to recognise that research is invariably framed in a global context, and a series of events to forge a network of Wolfson Scholars.

“We are thrilled to be able to announce the renewal of this programme, and we hope that it will continue to attract further funding to the sector.”

Background information

St Andrews is one of the UK’s most research-intensive universities. Over 80% of the university’s research active staff had their work assessed by REF 2014. St Andrews was ranked top in Scotland and 14th in the UK for the quality of its research publications. Subjects demonstrating major impact from research at St Andrews included Management (4th), Classics (4th), English (5th) and History (6th).

The Wolfson Foundation is an independent charity that aims to promote the civic health of society by supporting excellence in the fields of education, the arts and humanities, health and science. Established in 1955, over £800 million (£1.7 billion in real terms) has been awarded to more than 10,000 projects across the UK, all on the basis of expert peer review.

Partner universities involved in the Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarships in the Humanities programme 2018 are: the University of St Andrews, University of Birmingham, University of Cambridge, Durham University, University of Oxford, University of Southampton, University of Warwick, University of York, and University College London.

Scholarship recipients are nominated by their host university.

The Wolfson Foundation’s support for the University of St Andrews also includes:

• £500,000 to fund the main aquarium within the new Scottish Oceans Institute building
• £2,000,000 towards the cost of a biophotonics laboratory within the new School of Medicine (2008)
• £775,000 in Research Funding awarded through Wolfson Merit Awards, administered by the Royal Society.

Issued by the University of St Andrews Communications Office. Contact Emma Shea on 01334 462167/ or [email protected].