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Studentship Award and Grant Number, Leave, Mode of Attendance and Employment
If you require further information about maternity, paternity or sickness leave, or any other change of status, that may have implications for your award, please refer to the ESRC Postgraduate Funding Guide ESRC postgraduate funding guide – UKRI and the UKRI Standard Terms and Conditions of training grant Terms and conditions for training funding – UKRI
Note: if you are a full-time student, payments will be made at the full-time stipend rate and if you are a part-time student, at your usual part-time rate.
Studentship Award
- Standard maintenance: £20,780
- Research Training Support Grant (RTSG): Allowances and Funding
- Overseas fieldwork**
The ESRC will cover fees to the value of the standard home fee of £5,006 per annum. Note: Fees and stipend levels are set by UKRI. Stipend payments to you are managed by your home institution, please contact your institutional postgraduate funding office if you have any queries.
**Overseas fieldwork funding is only available for agreed specified periods of overseas fieldwork. The cost of overseas fieldwork is based on a notional amount of £450 per student, per PhD funded year. Monies are pooled and the actual allocation of funds towards fieldwork is at the DTP’s discretion. You can find the Overseas Fieldwork Application Form on the SWDTP website at ‘Funding for Current Students’ Allowances and Funding | SWDTP
Click here to read more about financial support for students on the UKRI website.
Grant Reference Number
If you are originally an SWDTC student (commencing prior to 2017), please note that this grant is now closed. For information the training grant number was ES/J50015X/1.
For SWDTP students commencing from 2017 to 2023, the ESRC grant reference is ES/P000630/1.
For SWDTP students commencing from 2024, the ESRC grant reference is ES/Y001575/1.
Medical Leave
Paid medical leave of 28 weeks available in a 12-month rolling period (not pro rata for PT). The total amount of medical leave is restricted to 52 weeks across the whole studentship. Phased returns from medical leave are permissible, please discuss with your institutional studentship office.
For further information please see: Terms and conditions for training funding – UKRI (see ‘UKRI training grant guidance’ on TGC8 – Absence). Retrospective requests are not permitted.
Students are allowed up to 12 months of unpaid suspension time over the lifetime of the funded period (for both full time and part time students). Requests must be made in advance, retrospective requests will not be permitted. For further information, please see the ESRC Postgraduate Funding Guide.
Family Leave
Funding is provided for periods of maternity, paternity and adoption leave. For further information, please refer to the UKRI Training and Funding Guide.
Family Leave
UKRI / ESRC allows annual leave to be taken during the course of a funded studentship, and this is included in the funding term. Your home institution can provide guidance on how to request / record annual leave.
Additional Leave
There are a number of different scenarios that would allow a stipend to be drawn in respect of:
• Special leave (including bereavement and pregnancy loss) and emergency situations such as serious illness or injury of a student’s dependant or situations at home, such as flooding
• Baby loss
• Carers leave
• Additional disability leave associated with delayed adjustments
• Health and safety leave
• Public duties
• Regulation leave
Change of Mode of Attendance
A student may apply to transfer from a full time to part time study or vice-versa. For further information, refer to UKRI Training Grant Terms and Conditions and ESRC Postgraduate Funding Guide.
Employment and Teaching
ESRC studentship award holders are encouraged to undertake a certain amount of paid teaching or other research work during their studentship provided that they spend a minimum of 1,650 hours each academic year on their doctoral research and research training. Their programme of postgraduate training must be compatible with such work and their supervisor must approve. Further details are available in the ESRC postgraduate funding guide – UKRI (pg 26/27) and the UKRI training grant guidance, under TGC4: Teaching and Demonstration Work