Opportunity status:
Open
Funders:
Funding type:
Grant
Publication date:
11 September 2025
Opening date:
11 September 2025 9:00am UK time
Closing date:
6 November 2025 4:00pm UK time
Apply for funding to support doctoral students through a doctoral focal award in the arts and humanities based at a Leverhulme Trust Research Centre.
Only the invited 2025 Leverhulme Trust Research Centres are eligible for funding.
You must demonstrate that you have capacity to support arts and humanities studentships within your research centre.
Each proposal must include:
* doctoral training and professional development
* an approach for addressing equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in both recruitment and the programme of activities
Funding is available for up to three cohorts of three studentship per centre.
Who can apply
You can only apply for this funding opportunity if we have invited you to do so.
To lead a project, you must:
* be based at one of the invited organisations. The application can support studentships based at any one of the 2025 Leverhulme Trust Research centres’ UK HEI partners
* be dedicated to training the new generation of arts and humanities researchers and have the vision to lead a consortium of organisations to deliver doctoral training
* possess the leadership, project management and stakeholder management skills to deliver the proposed training and development strategy and engage partner organisations
* provide evidence of relevant experience (appropriate to career stage)
* have the appropriate management skills and the administrative capacity to deliver the proposed doctoral provision
* demonstrate how you have contributed to developing a positive research culture and wider community to date
* create a strategy to ensure that your proposed training grant’s aims for student skills and career development will be met
Equality, diversity and inclusion
We are for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.
We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:
* career breaks
* support for people with caring responsibilities
* flexible working
* alternative working patterns
UKRI can during the application and assessment process.
What we're looking for
Aim
This Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) opportunity aims to meet the following objectives:
* deliver world-class doctoral training and development including cohort experience
* provide opportunities for students, preparing them to follow a diversity of career paths within and beyond academia
* focus on supporting research capacity in specific strategic areas, addressing societal challenges through arts and humanities doctoral research and involving interdisciplinary approaches
* advance current understanding, generate new knowledge, and develop the breadth of expertise for the future of the research and innovation workforce
* enhance collaboration and knowledge exchange within academia and between academia and other sectors for the benefit of the students, consortia members, and wider society
Scope
The AHRC studentships awarded must be integrated into the Leverhulme Trust Research Centre and its work. While it is a separate grant with UKRI terms and conditions it is expected that the grant is managed within the structure of the centre.
The studentships offered must have both a primary focus within an arts and humanities discipline and sit within the work of the Leverhulme Trust Research Centre in a way that enables each student to fully engage in and benefit from its interdisciplinary environment.
Whilst not all doctoral projects need to be interdisciplinary, we encourage interdisciplinary projects, as long as a minimum of 50% of the proposed doctoral research project is within arts and humanities disciplines, methodologies, and approaches.
EDI must be considered in all stages of the Leverhulme Trust Research Centre’s studentship awards. This includes at the recruitment stage where consideration should be given to addressing issues of underrepresentation in the AHRC-funded doctoral community. The centre should also ensure that it is considering EDI-related requirements in the training, development and cohort activities it provides. It should ensure that students are supported throughout their studies.
Project management
You will need to set out clear plans for the vision, delivery and governance of your training grant and how it will be delivered as part of the Leverhulme Trust Research Centre.
Partnerships
You will need to outline how studentships will benefit from any partnerships you have or will develop with non-HEI organisations. These might be partnerships already established through the Leverhulme Trust Research Centre or bespoke opportunities through the training grant.
Duration
The duration of this award is a minimum of six years. That is, three cohorts of up to four years per studentship with a minimum duration of three and a half years of funding for each student in line with the .
Projects must start by 1 October 2026.
Funding available
Funding will be based on four years per student. This includes:
* stipend and fees
* individual training and development activity for the student (Research Training Support Grant)
* cohort-based training and development activity
* additional stipend for collaborative awards
* London weighting where applicable
AHRC will provide indicative fee levels and UKRI minimum stipend rates. These are updated annually.
It is expected that the resources from the Leverhulme Trust Research Centre funding will be utilised to support its cohort of studentships.
What we will not fund
We will not provide funding for administrative costs relating to setting up and delivering of the training grant.
Supporting skills and talent
Support must be provided in line with for doctoral training and recruitment in line with .
Your application must describe how the Leverhulme Trust Research Centre will integrate the training grant within its work and demonstrate that it will:
* support three student cohorts on a three and a half to four-year (or equivalent part time) doctorate
* provide opportunities for significant and original doctoral research projects in line with the centre’s strategic focus leading to the award of a doctoral level degree in accordance with the university’s standard regulations
* create an innovative training and development offer which will attract students seeking a varied range of careers that utilises the research skills and experience that they will develop through working in the centre
* deliver a cohort development package, appropriate to the centre’s focus and the needs of the cohort, creating a group identity and opportunities for peer networking, and, if possible, open to students beyond AHRC-funded students to maximise benefits of training in an inclusive way
* provide appropriate research environments for students in terms of location, facilities, equipment, supervisory expertise, partnerships, student services and work culture
* support supervisors to empower students to carry out their research projects and undertake disciplinary and transferable skills training
The centre should provide training and development opportunities to broaden transferable skills of students in areas such as those listed below, and depending on their needs:
* in-depth subject area training
* responsible research and innovation, ethics, reproducibility, research integrity and open research methodology
* analytical skills
* project management and organisational skills
* public engagement skills
* routes to impact
* engagement with policymaking
* entrepreneurial, innovation, and commercialising research skills
* digital, software, technical and data skills
* communication, media, and storytelling skills
* teamwork, and the ability to collaborate across teams
* skills for practice-based research (including the use of relevant infrastructure)
* interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working, grounded in the arts and humanities as the foundation for working across disciplinary boundaries
Doctoral studentships
When establishing the scope of student research projects and throughout the duration of the studentships, the Leverhulme Trust Research Centre must:
* enable doctoral research projects which are student-driven, where students have agency to develop their doctoral proposal
* enable students to engage partners in developing their doctoral research ideas
* equip supervisors with information and training to empower their students to engage with the opportunities offered
* provide an interdisciplinary environment and support students to maximise translation of their outputs into outcomes and impacts
Studentships may be practice-based.
Projects to be delivered as collaborative doctoral awards (CDAs) should be co-developed by the supervisors from the HEI and non-HEI before the student is recruited but there should be enough scope for the student to make the project their own.
Monitoring and evaluation
Monitoring, evaluation and reporting will be agreed between AHRC and the Leverhulme Trust and additional information provided to the centres once agreed.
Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I)
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.
As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how their proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I, identifying potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.
See, including where applicants can find additional support.
How to apply
We are running this funding opportunity on the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.
Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.
To apply
You can only apply for this funding opportunity if we have invited you to do so. The start application link will be provided via email.
1. Confirm you are the project lead.
2. Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email -service.ukri.org
Please allow at least 10 working days for your organisation to be added to the Funding Service. We strongly suggest that if you are asking UKRI to add your organisation to the Funding Service to enable you to apply to this opportunity, you also create an organisation Administration Account. This will be needed to allow the acceptance and management of any grant that might be offered to you.
3. Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page.
4. Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office.
5. Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
6. Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.
Where indicated, you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant.
When including images, you must:
* provide a descriptive caption or legend for each image immediately underneath it in the text box (this must be outside the image and counts towards your word limit)
* insert each new image on a new line
* use files smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format
Images should only be used to convey important visual information that cannot easily be put into words. The following are not permitted, and your application may be rejected if you include:
* sentences or paragraphs of text
* tables
* excessive quantities of images
A few words are permitted where the image would lack clarity without the contextual words, such as a diagram, where text labels are required for an axis or graph column.
For more guidance on the Funding Service, see:
* * *
References
References should be included within the word count of the appropriate question section. You should use your discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.
Hyperlinks can be used in reference information. When including references, you should consider how your references will be viewed and used by the assessors, ensuring that:
* references are easily identifiable by the assessors
* references are formatted as appropriate to your research
* persistent identifiers are used where possible
General use of hyperlinks
Applications should be self-contained. You should only use hyperlinks to link directly to reference information. You must not include links to web resources to extend your application. Assessors are not required to access links to conduct assessment or recommend a funding decision.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI)
Use of generative AI tools to prepare funding applications is permitted, however, caution should be applied.
For more information see our .
Deadline
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) must receive your application by 6 November 2025 at 4:00pm UK time.
You will not be able to apply after this time.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
Following the submission of your application to the funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and applications will not be returned for amendment. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.
Personal data
Processing personal data
AHRC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications.
We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read .
AHRC, as part of UKRI, will need to share the application and any personal information that it contains with the Leverhulme Trust so that they can participate in the assessment process. See .
Sensitive information
If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email
Include in the subject line: [the funding opportunity title; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number].
Typical examples of confidential information include:
* individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
* declaration of interest
* additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section
* conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection
* the application is an invited resubmission
For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read .
Publication of outcomes
AHRC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity.
If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the .
Summary
Word limit: 550
In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.
We usually make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, therefore do not include any confidential or sensitive information. Make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:
* opinion-formers
* policymakers
* the public
* the wider research community
Guidance for writing a summary
Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:
* context
* aims and objectives
* potential applications and benefits
Core team
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
* project lead (PL)
* project co-lead (UK) (PcL)
* grant manager
Only list one individual as project lead.