The AHRC Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership (M4C) brings together eight leading universities across the Midlands to support the professional and personal development of the next generation of arts and humanities doctoral researchers.
Please note: The deadline for submission of applications is now closed.
General information
M4C is a collaboration between the University of Birmingham, Birmingham City University, University of Warwick, Coventry University, University of Leicester, De Montfort University, Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.
For 2023 entry Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership is offering up to 60 fully funded PhD studentships for eligible students in arts and humanities through the Open Competition and 13 Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDA). The CDA projects provide diverse and unique project opportunities with national, regional and local partner organisations. New for 2023, the Stuart Hall Foundation (SHF) Scholarship will support at least two studentships a year for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates to undertake doctoral research in arts and humanities.
From the academic year 2022/23, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding is open to UK and International research students. M4C studentships can be undertaken full-time and part-time. Studentships for open doctoral awards are for 3.5 years and for the CDAs are for 4 years full-time study (a maximum of 7 years and 8 years respectively for part-time study).
There are two routes to PhD study:
- Open Doctoral Awards, where you agree a research proposal in any disciplinary or interdisciplinary area of the arts and humanities with your supervisory team. (60 awards available)
- Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDAs), which are co-designed between an M4C institution and an external partner organisation. (13 awards available)
Open Doctoral Awards
We invite applications from UK and International students with research interests in the following AHRC subject areas:
- Archaeology
- Classics and Ancient History
- Drama and Theatre Arts
- English Language and Literature
- Geography
- Heritage Studies
- History (including African Studies)
- Interdisciplinary (including Sexuality and Gender Studies)
- Law
- Linguistics
- Media, Film Studies and Creative Writing
- Modern Languages
- Music
- Philosophy
- Theology and Religion
- Visual Arts and History of Art
For full details of the research areas available, please see our AHRC research areas.
Deadlines and further information
The deadline for AHRC funding applications is 12:00 GMT on 11 January 2023. Applicants must also have applied for a place to study at one of the eight M4C universities. For full details of eligibility, funding, research supervision areas and CDA projects, and for dates of our November 2022 application writing workshops, please visit the M4C website or contact enquiries@midlands4cities.ac.uk.
Meet some of our Midlands 4 Cities funded students...
Andrew Searle, tells us more about his experience researching History part-time at the University of Birmingham. Find out more from Andrew...
International student Anna Persig, tells us more about her experience researching with the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing. Find out more fro Anna...