CoSS/USYD Joint PhD Scholarships

The College of Social Sciences (CoSS) and the University of Sydney (USYD) are delighted to be inviting applications for 4 funded Joint PhD Studentships in Social Sciences that will see PhD candidates commence their projects in October 2025.

The projects will fund a PhD candidate for 3 years and projects are expected to be designed and supervised in such a way that candidates can realistically complete the research and submit their thesis within the funded period.

Important considerations

  • 2 scholarships will be offered for projects where the Home institution is UofG, and 2 offered for projects where USYD is the Home institution
  • The PhD candidate must spend a minimum of 30% of thier candidature physically based at each institution - this would usually follow a Year 1 - Home institution, Year 2 - Host institution, Year 3 (and submission) - Home institution format.
  • The successful applicant must meet the PhD entry requirement of both institutions and will need to complete a Joint PhD Student Agreement for consideration by Sydney prior to lodging a Sydney PhD application (although the Glasgow PhD application can be lodged without this)

Funding Benefits

Each of the four funded projects will be granted a full scholarship with benfits that match the CoSS PhD Scholarshipo (for UofG based candidates) or the Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship (for USYD based candidates) and a one off travel grant of up £3,000 (UofG) or $5,000 (Sydney Global Mobility Joint PhD Travel Scholarship) to facilitate the required travel between the two institutions.

Project proposals can come from supervisors in any of the following Schools:

*Two Important Notes if collaborating with a University of Sydney Business School colleague:

  • University of Sydney Business School academics may not yet be familiar with the programme, so when reaching out, please include the contact details of the USYD Dual and Joint Degree Coordinator (below) who will be able to assist their academics with more details:
  • If one of the successful projects includes a University of Sydney Business School colleague, and the appointed PhD student is therefore to enrol in a University of Sydney Business School PhD, project teams should be aware that the University of Sydney Business Schools’ admission criteria is a lot more competitive (below) to that of their Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences or Law School PhD programmes. This should be considered when developing the project, as well as potential recruitment if the project is successful:
    • “Admission to a research degree in the University of Sydney Business School is very competitive. You need to have completed an Australian honours (or equivalent) or a postgraduate degree with outstanding results (at least 80%) in order to be considered for an offer. Admission to the PhD program also requires prior completion of a 20,000 word (approximate word count) honours or Master’s thesis.”

Project Teams must include at least 1 supervisor from both UofG and USYD, with projects being designed in such a way that allows a PhD candidate to complete the project and submit their thesis within the 3-year funded period.

Successful candidates will be required to register at both UofG and USYD and spent time at each institution.

Applications should be submitted by prospective first/lead supervisors based within one of the eligible Schools (above). Supervisors must have undergone the relevant supervisor training/development within their current institution during the last 5 years.

Applications are welcome from academics at any stage of their careers i.e. from early career researchers to more experienced supervisors. We do ask, however, that if an academic is applying as the first/lead supervisor, that they have one or more members on the supervisor team that are experienced in supervising a PhD candidate to completion, i.e, a supervisor with at least two PhD completions.

A table of potential co-supervision pairings can be found linked on the right-hand side but the competition is open to any eligible co-supervision pairings, and applications should be lodged on the CoSS UofG/USyd Joint PhD Project Proposal form, to the CoSS Graduate School (gradschool.socsci@glasgow.ac.uk) by 09 December 2024.

Timeline

DateAction
16 October 2024 Supervisors invited to submit applications
09 December 2024 Application deadline, form submitted to the CoSS Graduate School
10 December 2024 Project proposals circulated to Joint Selection Panel (representatives from CoSS and USYD)
Week of 27-30 January 2025 Joint Selection Panel meet to select 4 projects (2 based at UofG and 2 based at USYD)
31 January 2025 Outcomes communicated to all project teams
20 February 2025 Student recruitment adverts due to CoSS Graduate School and USYD from sucessful project teams
24 February 2025 Student recruitment adverts go live
31 March 2024 Student application closing date
07 April 2025 Deadline for references; student applications circulated to project teams for assessment/shortlist/interviews
30 May 2025 Deadline for project teams to identify preferred applicants to projects
October 2025 Funded students to commence PhD

Please let the CoSS Graduate School know if you have any questions.

CoSS UofG/USYD Joint PhD - Potential Co-Supervision Pairings

CoSS/USYD Joint PhD - Project Proposal Application Form