Thursday, 30 January 2025
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has announced that the University of Nottingham, along with six other higher education institutions (HEIs) in the Midlands, will receive Doctoral Landscape Awards.
These prestigious funding awards, which reflect the HEIs’ successes in Arts and Humanities research and research supervision, are for scholarships for arts and humanities doctoral study.
The Universities of Nottingham, Leicester, Birmingham, Warwick, Birmingham City University, DeMontfort University and Coventry University, have all secured Doctoral Landscape Awards, enabling these leading Midlands institutions to continue to build on the thriving relationship and collaborative community of doctoral students producing world-class arts and humanities research.
Only 50 universities across the UK have received the funding which has been allocated through a formula-based approach. Each institutional award will support 15 full-time PhD students, with studentships starting in October 2026 – three per year, over a five-year period – and will contribute towards the AHRC’s three-fold strategy for post-graduate research funding, alongside Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships and Doctoral Focal Awards.
The University of Nottingham is delighted to be awarded AHRC Doctoral Landscape Awards. These will allow us to build on our postgraduate training successes of the past decade. The awards also ensure the longer-term health of AHRC-remit disciplines by supporting a diverse and talented new pipeline of postgraduates to make key contributions both to their disciplinary fields and to wider society.”
All institutions receiving Doctoral Landscape Awards will be part of an AHRC-supported regional Hub; preparations to set up a Midlands Hub are currently co-ordinated by Professor Nicola Royan and the University of Nottingham.
Professor Royan, who is also Director of Midlands4Cities, said: “I am delighted to be leading the discussions on the Midlands Hub, with a view to maintaining the strengths of Midlands3Cities and Midlands4Cities, developed over a decade, in sharing best practice, developing collaborations and being a point of contact for external partners.”
AHRC Executive Chair Professor Christopher Smith, said: “The AHRC Doctoral Landscape Awards provide flexible funding to allow universities to build on existing excellence in research and opportunities for innovation across the arts and humanities. They will support the development of talented people and, alongside our other doctoral schemes, contribute to a vibrant, diverse and internationally-attractive research and innovation system.”
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More information is available from Professor Nicola Royan in the University of Nottingham’s School of English, via nicola.royan@nottingham.ac.uk
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About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 32 in Europe and 16th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings: Europe 2024, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the second most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2022 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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