Joint Doctoral Program of the University of St Andrews and the University of Bonn

The origin of mass is one of the deepest questions in science. Today’s quantum theoretic belief is that mass is a manifestation of the resistance particles experience when interacting with the so-called Higgs field. Why each particle type acquires a unique mass remains unclear, and mass itself becomes a problematic concept since its main physical role is to mediate the gravitational interaction between material bodies — yet no current theory of gravitation reconciles with quantum field theory.

The question has a long history. Western scientists, from Newton's era until the late 19th century, viewed mass as a constant intrinsic property of material objects. Then, mathematization of field theories of electromagnetism and gravitation by Maxwell and others opened opportunities for deeper explanations. The electromagnetic world view emerged in Germany and Britain around 1900. In this view, all properties of matter, including mass, were believed to be fully reduceable to properties of special states of the electromagnetic field. The idea is strikingly similar to that of the Higgs mechanism; in both cases the property of mass is not intrinsic to matter itself but is reduced to the specifics of something else — but is there a historical continuity?

While the historical study of mass is well developed, the history of ideas about how mass is generated remains under-explored. This project allows for a conceptual and philosophical comparison of theories of mass generation between the late 19th and 20th centuries. Its scope expects the student to define their own project within it, while ensuring strategic fit. One aspect of an investigation of the potential continuities and discontinuities between the electromagnetic framework, the Higgs mechanism, and potentially non-Western concepts of mass generation could be the direct mathematical and philosophical study and comparison of the models employed. An alternative, less formal, focus could be the role of the Scottish community of physicists, as both Peter Higgs, after whom the Higgs mechanism is named, and key figures in reducing matter to the electromagnetic field originated or worked in Scotland. Exploration of exchanges and movements by figures far less known than Maxwell, Einstein, or Higgs, around the local cultures of the global – including non-Western –community of physicists, could provide new insights into how knowledge circulated to bridge the gap between ideas around 1900 and those in the late 20th century. The PhD project, "Continuities and Discontinuities in Understanding the Origin of Mass" will provide new integrated philosophical and historical perspectives on the ideas of mass underpinning the building blocks of matter and fundamental interactions.

While a foundational knowledge of physics and mathematics is essential, the student can propose their approach to incorporating non-formal factors influencing historical developments. The anticipated schedule is:

Sept 2025 - Sept 2026 Bonn
Sept 2026 - Sept 2027 St Andrews 
Sept 2027 - April 2028 Bonn
May 2028 - Feb 2029 St Andrews


This provides ample opportunity for archival work in both countries, for which additional small grants will be sought. In Britain relevant archives are in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cambridge and London. From Bonn, close relevant archives are in Göttingen, Freiburg and Amsterdam.
The major output will be a thesis meeting the requirements of either Bonn or St Andrews (decided early, in consultation with the student). Should they wish, the student will be supported in exploring digital research methodologies and/or dissemination methods for wider impact and public engagement.

In summary, exploring continuities and discontinuities across time and place in ideas of mass generation will harness the power of interdisciplinarity to provide new understanding of how foundational concepts evolve across different scientific cultures. This project bridges historical inquiry with philosophical analysis, fostering a deeper comprehension of a fundamental concept in physics.

The project will be managed jointly between the School of Mathematics & Statistics at St Andrews and the Lichtenberg Group for History and Philosophy of Physics within the Institut für Philosophie at Bonn. The lead supervisors will be Prof. Isobel Falconer (St Andrews) and Prof. Dennis Lehmkuhl (Bonn). The expanded supervisory team includes also Dr Alex Russell (St Andrews) and Dr. Bernadette Lessel (Bonn), who will play a major role in ensuring coverage of all areas required for this highly interdisciplinary project.

Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to Isobel Falconer (ijf3@st-andrews.ac.uk) and Bernadette Lessel (blessel@uni-bonn.de).

Duration of award

Up to 3.5 years. The student will be expected to spend approximately half of the award term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn. The successful candidate will be expected to have completed the doctorate degree by the end of the award term. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

Value of award

The funding comprises a scholarship equivalent of a full-fees award and stipend for a period of up to 3.5 years. It is expected that the student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn:
·         For the period spent at the University of St Andrews, the scholarship will comprise a full fees award and a stipend paid at the current UK Research Council rate (£19,237 each year in 2024–2025)
·         For the period spent at the University of Bonn, the scholarship will comprise a monthly maintenance grant of €1,500. The University of Bonn does not charge any tuition fees, but students must pay a so-called social contribution once per semester (currently €315 per semester).

Unless otherwise specified, the scholarships do not cover:

·         Any continuation, extension, or resubmission period/fees.
·         A research training grant or another equivalent award for research expenses.
·         Support for travel, immigration, health insurance and related charges between the partner institutions.

Tuition or maintenance award

Tuition and maintenance.

Note that this application is for the scholarship only; successful applicants must also apply for a PhD place and be admitted to each institution through normal routes.

Submit an application to Isobel Falconer (ijf3@st-andrews.ac.uk) copying in Dennis Lehmkuhl (dennis.lehmkuhl@uni-bonn.de). Applications should include the following documents:

·         CV including information about publications (if applicable).
·         Transcripts of most relevant/recent degrees.
·         Information about the thesis components of your recent degrees (thesis mark, word count, weight/length in comparison to the degree overall)
·         Personal statement that includes an outline of the aspects of this project that most interest you and how these fit into your previous study and ambitions
·         English language certificate if required – check the requirements
·         Contact details for two academic referees. When you have submitted your application, we will contact your referees, requesting that they send references directly to us, and inform you that we have done so. It is your responsibility to check with your referees that they have provided a reference to us within 2 weeks of our contacting them.

Following a successful application for the scholarship, candidates may be invited to submit an application to both universities for admission into the program and award of the scholarship.

Please indicate in your application that you wish to be considered for this Global doctoral scholarship (Lehmkuhl-Falconer). Applications should be submitted to the co-supervisors via email to: Isobel Falconer (ijf3@st-andrews.ac.uk) copying in Dennis Lehmkuhl (dennis.lehmkuhl@uni-bonn.de).

Terms and conditions of scholarships for St Andrews can be found here: Awards general terms and conditions.

Please contact us should you have any questions regarding the scholarship: pgscholarships@st-andrews.ac.uk

Immediately

Scholarship application deadline

February 21, 2025

By late March 2025. Awards are subject to final signatures of contracts between the parties and successful admission to both institutions.

Next steps

Successful scholarship applicants will be invited to apply for admission to both universities from the end of February 2025, and then formal outcomes of the position will be made, subject to provision of full application details and materials for entry to the programme at the agreed entry point in 2025-2026.

Successful scholarship applicants must meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place. Please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes at St Andrews and the PhD application guidelines at Bonn.

In view of the digitization of human culture, the Anthropocene, and the advent of post-humanism, the period around 2000 appears to represent no less significant a transition for conceptions of the human than earlier turning points. While Schings’s (1994) and Riedel’s (1996, 2014) studies have established the anthropological capacity of German literature for two thresholds to modernity ‘around 1800’ and ‘around 1900’, the purpose of this doctoral project will be to determine the extent to which the most recent German literature can be said to exercise this anthropological function in a set of discursive and existential conditions that seems fundamentally different from those obtaining in the earlier threshold periods.

Schings’s and Riedel’s studies of German literature have established that literature possesses a capacity for generating and communicating knowledge of the human condition. The aesthetic form of literary texts means that the content and form of human knowledge contained in them differs significantly from the knowledge found in medical and scientific discourses. The human knowledge contained by literature differs from that of the natural sciences in that its point of departure is not the objectified human body but subjective corporeality and the lifeworld of the human subject. As a poetology of knowledge (Vogl 1999), however, literature is not the antithesis of scientific knowledge about man, but participates in the production of this knowledge, sharing in what Markus Gabriel has called the human “capacity for creating self-images” (Gabriel 2020). In terms of form, the literary discourse of the human is antidualistic, holistic, ludic and nonsystematic.

Literary anthropology denotes neither a theory of literature, nor a critical lens through which to read literary texts, nor “ethnographic” literary-cultural study in the wake of Lévi-Strauss, but the inherent capacity of literature to figure forth knowledge of the human condition by virtue of its aesthetic distance from human potentialities, strengths and weaknesses. Aesthetic distance refers to literature’s capacity to allow a disinterested, yet comprehending and empathetic engagement with such anthropological subject matter as human natality and mortality, development and growth, sickness, and old age, the imagination and the affects, and human hopes and fears.  

The project seeks to discover what has become of literary anthropology in the period ‘around 2000’. Do works by such contemporary authors as Angelika Meier, Mithu Sanyal, and Julia Franck amount to a discourse of the human, and if so, can this discourse be meaningfully and productively be characterized as ‘anthropology’? 

In order to answer this leading and overarching research question, the researcher will need to address a range of anthropological topics within recent German literature. This range will include:

·         The temporality of the human subject
·         Posthumanism
·         New materialism and decentered human agency
·         Ideas of the human in the Anthropocene
·         Digital prosthetics, the internet and augmented subjectivity

Thinking the anthropological capacity of recent German literature requires interdisciplinary awareness to transcend the gap between the natural sciences and the humanities, and between scientific and philosophical anthropology. Part of the task will be to determine whether and to what extent such interdisciplinary awareness is inscribed in literature itself, a discourse strikingly characterized by its intertextual relations with other discourses, including the natural sciences, yet governed by its own principles, including aesthetic distance. 

In order to overcome the dualisms of humanistic versus scientific anthropology, the researcher will employ the paradigm of embodiment (Etzelmüller/ Fuchs/ Tewes, 2017), assuming that human subjectivity is always already embodied and that the object of anthropology is to understand the life processes of a living organism in its environment.

Guided by the supervisors, the researcher will determine the corpus of primary works of literature for study.

The project will be managed jointly between the School of Modern Languages at St Andrews and the Department of German & Comparative Literature at Bonn. The student will be supervised by Dr Andrew Cusack (St Andrews) and Prof. Johannes Lehmann (Bonn).

Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the co-supervisors:

Dr Andrew Cusack (atc4@st-andrews.ac.uk)

Prof. Johannes Lehmann (johannes.lehmann@uni-bonn.de) 

Admission and scholarship criteria of both universities must be met.

For St Andrews, please refer to details of how to apply and of entry requirements here: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/study/apply/postgraduate/research/. 

Level of study

Postgraduate Research (Doctoral)

Domicile for fee status

No restrictions.

Schools

School of Modern Languages (St Andrews) and Department of German and Comparative Literature (Bonn)

Application assessment

Academic merit

Mode of study

Full time

Geographical criteria

No restrictions.

Year of entry

2025-2026 academic year.

Students will enrol at both institutions from the outset. It is expected that the successful student will begin the programme of study at Bonn to initiate the research and move to St Andrews at a later date, full details to be agreed with the supervisory team and the respective institutions. Overall, the programme of study will include 50% at each institution. The student may start their degree at any point in the academic year 2025-2026 prior to a final entry date of 27 May 2026 subject to agreement with the supervisory team. 

Additional criteria

Applicants must not already (i) hold a doctoral degree; or (ii) be matriculated for a doctoral degree at either the University of St Andrews or the University of Bonn (or another institution).

Duration of award

Up to 3.5 years. The student will be expected to spend approximately half of the award term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn. The successful candidate will be expected to have completed the doctorate degree by the end of the award term. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

Value of award

The funding comprises a scholarship equivalent of a full-fees award and stipend for a period of up to 3.5 years. It is expected that the student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn:
·         For the period spent at the University of St Andrews, the scholarship will comprise a full fees award and a stipend paid at the current UK Research Council rate (£19,237 each year in 2024–2025)
·         For the period spent at the University of Bonn, the scholarship will comprise a monthly maintenance grant of €1,500. The University of Bonn does not charge any tuition fees, but students must pay a so-called social contribution once per semester (currently €315 per semester).

Unless otherwise specified, the scholarships do not cover:

·         Any continuation, extension, or resubmission period/fees.
·         A research training grant or another equivalent award for research expenses.
·         Support for travel, immigration, health insurance and related charges between the partner institutions.

Tuition or maintenance award

Tuition and maintenance.

By mid-April 2025. Awards are subject to final signatures of contracts between the parties and successful admission to both institutions.

Next steps

Successful scholarship applicants will be invited to apply for admission to both universities from the end of March 2025, and then formal outcomes of the position will be made, subject to provision of full application details and materials for entry to the programme at the agreed entry point in 2025-2026.

Successful scholarship applicants must meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place. Please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes at St Andrews and the PhD application guidelines at Bonn.

Life as an animal is a constant process of choosing between actions: do I look for food, escape from a predator, find a mate, or stay on the sofa? Many of these actions are mutually exclusive, so decisions must carefully balance the importance of the animal’s various needs. Animals do this by taking into account the world around them, which tells them what is available in their surroundings (e.g., food or a predator), and the world within themselves, which informs them of their own needs (e.g., hunger or survival). Many decades of work has focused on how exactly cells with the brain perceive the world, and more recent studies have begun to uncover how animals register their own needs. However, how these factors are integrated to produce the adaptive behaviour that an animal needs to survive is still largely unclear. How is it decided which action is favourable? How does it get selected, with all competing actions repressed? Key will be to see how the brain integrates different, at times opposing external and internal signals, and how these combine to produce behaviour.

The main reason why this important question remains unanswered is a lack of tools to comprehensively study the brain and spinal cord. This proposal aims to overcome this problem by taking advantage of the unique strengths of the Drosophila larva as a model organism, in combination with cutting-edge neuroscience tools. The Drosophila larva has an interesting set of behaviours, yet has a small number of neurons, each uniquely identifiable and amenable to both activity imaging and manipulations. Crucially, the project supervisors are part of a collaborative effort to complete a full connectivity map (‘connectome’) of its nervous system, allowing us to see how each neuron within the brain is connected. This project will harness the breakthrough technologies of whole-brain lightsheet microscopy, optogenetics, and connectomics to understand how the behaviour of the animal is adapted to suit its needs.

The student will aim to identify which cells are involved, and how they affect decision-making. They will do this by 1) using lightsheet microscopy to determine which cells in the brain and spinal cord differ in their activity in response to various sensory cues when the internal needs are different (specifically, when the animal is hungry or not) in the context of feeding and locomotion; 2) using optogenetics, which uses light to switch on or off specific cell types, seeing what effect the activity of these specific cells of interest has on the animal’s ability to produce different behaviours. The student will be able to generate different combinations of internal and external factors, and see how the activity of specific neural cells relates to behavioural decision-making in response to them. Combined with the connectome, which the student will work on to contribute to its completion, these results will produce an integrative view of the generation of the animal’s behavioural repertoire.

The project addresses a question that lies at the heart of our understanding of the neural basis of behaviour, and will test how brains determine which action to take. Its results have implications for how brains across the animal kingdom -including ours- are designed. The student recruited to the project will receive training in cutting-edge techniques in a rapidly evolving field, and will, in addition to the core results, produce a database of brain cell types that are of interest for follow-up studies. The project will set the stage for an international partnership that will be well-positioned to investigate brain function in health and disease.]

The project will be managed jointly between the School of Psychology & Neuroscience at St Andrews and the Life and Medical Sciences Institute at Bonn. The student will be supervised by Dr Maarten Zwart (St Andrews) and Prof. Michael Pankratz (Bonn).

Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the co-supervisors  (mfz@st-andrews.ac.uk and pankratz@uni-bonn.de).

Admission and scholarship criteria of both universities must be met.

For St Andrews, please refer to details of how to apply and of entry requirements here: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/study/apply/postgraduate/research/. 

Level of study

Postgraduate Research (Doctoral)

Domicile for fee status

No restrictions.

Schools

Psychology & Neuroscience (St Andrews) and Life and Medical Sciences Institute (Bonn)

Application assessment

Academic merit

Mode of study

Full time

Geographical criteria

No restrictions.

Year of entry

2025-2026 academic year.

Students will enrol at both institutions from the outset. It is expected that the successful student will begin the programme of study at Bonn to initiate the research and move to St Andrews at a later date, full details to be agreed with the supervisory team and the respective institutions. Overall, the programme of study will include 50% at each institution. The student may start their degree at any point in the academic year 2025-2026 prior to a final entry date of 27 May 2026 subject to agreement with the supervisory team. 

Additional criteria

Applicants must not already (i) hold a doctoral degree; or (ii) be matriculated for a doctoral degree at either the University of St Andrews or the University of Bonn (or another institution).

Duration of award

Up to 3.5 years. The student will be expected to spend approximately half of the award term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn. The successful candidate will be expected to have completed the doctorate degree by the end of the award term. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

Value of award

The funding comprises a scholarship equivalent of a full-fees award and stipend for a period of up to 3.5 years. It is expected that the student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn:
·         For the period spent at the University of St Andrews, the scholarship will comprise a full fees award and a stipend paid at the current UK Research Council rate (£19,237 each year in 2024–2025)
·         For the period spent at the University of Bonn, the scholarship will comprise a monthly maintenance grant of €1,500. The University of Bonn does not charge any tuition fees, but students must pay a so-called social contribution once per semester (currently €315 per semester).

Unless otherwise specified, the scholarships do not cover:

·         Any continuation, extension, or resubmission period/fees.
·         A research training grant or another equivalent award for research expenses.
·         Support for travel, immigration, health insurance and related charges between the partner institutions.

Tuition or maintenance award

Tuition and maintenance.

Submit an application to Dr Maarten Zwart (mfz@st-andrews.ac.uk). Applications should include the following information:

·         CV, including information about publications (publications are not a requirement).
·         Transcripts of most relevant/recent degrees.
·         Information about laboratory and other relevant experience.
·         Statement of suitability as a candidate for the project (max 500 words)
·         The names of 2-3 referees (or letters of reference).

Suitable applicants will be invited for interview via video call with the prospective supervisors.

Following a successful application for the scholarship, candidates may be invited to apply to both universities for admission into the program and award of the scholarship.

Please indicate in this application that you wish to be considered for this Global doctoral scholarship (Pankratz-Zwart).

Terms and conditions of scholarships for St Andrews can be found here: Awards general terms and conditions.

Please contact us should you have any questions regarding the scholarship: pgscholarships@st-andrews.ac.uk

Immediately

Scholarship application deadline

March 21, 2025

By mid-April 2025. Awards are subject to final signatures of contracts between the parties and successful admission to both institutions.

Next steps

Successful scholarship applicants will be invited to apply for admission to both universities from the end of March 2025, and then formal outcomes of the position will be made, subject to provision of full application details and materials for entry to the programme at the agreed entry point in 2025-2026.

Successful scholarship applicants must meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place. Please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes at St Andrews and the PhD application guidelines at Bonn.

The survival of living organisms relies on the ability to make the right material at the right time in the right place. Exquisite control mechanisms have evolved to trigger biochemical events only when and where they are needed. These complex networks allow biological systems to rapidly adapt in response to specific internal and external stimuli with spatial and temporal precision.

Artificial chemical systems that autonomously create materials with life-like properties are essentially unknown. Traditionally, chemistry has eschewed mixtures of compounds, viewing them as an unwanted problem that must be eliminated. However, controlling and directing mixtures of molecular and nanoscale chemical entities is critical to creating systems displaying the behaviours characteristic of biology. The nascent field of systems chemistry embraces mixtures. In the systems chemistry approach, a collection of artificial chemical entities, each programmed to interact and react with one or more partners within the ensemble, can express complex dynamic behaviours. By using relatively simple artificial components that can be studied experimentally, systems chemists investigate how complex reaction networks give rise to emergent behaviours and seek to create new smart materials with life-like properties.

Systems chemistry is, by nature, modular. Individual research groups generally specialise in recreating and studying a small number of behaviours, although using broadly similar research approaches. The next generation of challenging questions requires the integration of several such modules. Therefore, we propose to bring together a team that, working together, has the expertise to make a step-change in the sophistication of artificial chemical networks.
Our goal is to use light to modulate reaction networks exhibiting two fundamental life-like behaviours— self-replication and nanoscale assembly—seeking to control both where and when these replication and assembly processes occur. This will create a new type of animate material that exhibits properties deriving from structure on multiple length-scales.

This project will bring together four cutting-edge chemical technologies—two from St Andrews and two from Bonn (see Figure)—to institute a new direction for the entire field of systems chemistry. It builds on our current collaborative research grant, which has enabled existing ECRs to participate in a focussed proof-of-concept project integrating photoswitches within the structure of synthetic replicators. This new award would provide the resources to capitalise on that learning to establish a sustainable collaborative research programme leveraging and enhancing the technologies available on both sites. The Figure illustrates one system built from our technologies—light turns on a replicator which sends a self-amplifying instruction to a pool of nanoscale objects such that one is selected to autonomously assemble in a spatially precise location.

Objectives:
1.    Create optimized photoswitchable (LvK) artificial molecular replicators (DP) that can be remotely actuated to turn replication activity on and off.
2.    Integrate photoswitchable molecular replicators within a pool of (molecular-sized) building blocks to create a chemical reaction network that generates specific dynamic materials at defined times and places according to photonic and chemical instructions.
3.    Install photoswitchable replicators on the surface of metallosupramolecular cages (AL) and gold nanoparticles (ERK), thereby creating nanoscale building blocks that can be instructed to assemble with spatiotemporal control.
4.    Demonstrate that the modularity of our approach establishes a new general category of autonomously assembling materials that integrate the instructible behaviour of our molecular technologies (photoswitches and replicators) with the unique physical properties of any number of solution-processible nanomaterials.
This research is high-risk, high reward (high degree of technical challenge; lack of precedent). However, a large part of the risk is mitigated by the maturity of the technology provided by the four team leaders, and by the fact that we have already begun to optimise the integration of some components.

The project will be managed jointly between the School of Chemistry at St Andrews and the Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry at Bonn. The student will be supervised by Dr Euan Kay and Prof. Douglas Philp (St Andrews) and Dr. Larissa von Krbek and Prof. Arne Lützen (Bonn).

Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the co-supervisors Dr Euan Kay (ek28@st-andrews.ac.uk) and Dr. Larissa von Krbek (larissa.vonkrbek@uni-bonn.de)

Admission and scholarship criteria of both universities must be met.

For St Andrews, please refer to details of how to apply and of entry requirements here: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/study/apply/postgraduate/research/. 

Level of study

Postgraduate Research (Doctoral)

Domicile for fee status

No restrictions.

Schools

Chemistry (St Andrews) and Institute for Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (Bonn)

Application assessment

Academic merit

Mode of study

Full time

Geographical criteria

No restrictions.

Year of entry

2025-2026 academic year.

Students will enrol at both institutions from the outset. It is expected that the successful student will begin the programme of study at Bonn to initiate the research and move to St Andrews at a later date, full details to be agreed with the supervisory team and the respective institutions. Overall, the programme of study will include 50% at each institution. The student may start their degree at any point in the academic year 2025-2026 prior to a final entry date of 27 May 2026 subject to agreement with the supervisory team. 

Additional criteria

Applicants must not already (i) hold a doctoral degree; or (ii) be matriculated for a doctoral degree at either the University of St Andrews or the University of Bonn (or another institution).

Duration of award

Up to 3.5 years. The student will be expected to spend approximately half of the award term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn. The successful candidate will be expected to have completed the doctorate degree by the end of the award term. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

Value of award

The funding comprises a scholarship equivalent of a full-fees award and stipend for a period of up to 3.5 years. It is expected that the student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn:
·         For the period spent at the University of St Andrews, the scholarship will comprise a full fees award and a stipend paid at the current UK Research Council rate (£19,237 each year in 2024–2025)
·         For the period spent at the University of Bonn, the scholarship will comprise a monthly maintenance grant of €1,500. The University of Bonn does not charge any tuition fees, but students must pay a so-called social contribution once per semester (currently €315 per semester).

Unless otherwise specified, the scholarships do not cover:

·         Any continuation, extension, or resubmission period/fees.
·         A research training grant or another equivalent award for research expenses.
·         Support for travel, immigration, health insurance and related charges between the partner institutions.

Tuition or maintenance award

Tuition and maintenance.

Submit an application to [please indicate the names of supervisors to whom applications for the scholarship should be submitted, or a School contact if preferable – please note applications at this stage are for the scholarship only – successful scholarship applicants must also apply for and be admitted to each institution through normal routes, and you may wish to use selection criteria for your scholarship selection process which ensure normal School/institution requirements for admission can be met].  Expressions of interest should include the following documents:

·         CV including information about publications.
·         Transcripts of most relevant/recent degrees.
·         Information about thesis components (thesis mark, word count, weight/length in comparison to the degree overall).
·         Statement of suitability as a candidate for the project (max 500 words) 

Following a successful application for the scholarship, candidates may be invited to submit an application to both universities for admission into the program and award of the scholarship.

Please indicate in your application that you wish to be considered for this Global doctoral scholarship (von Krbek-Lützen-Kay-Philp). Applications should be submitted to the co-supervisors via email to: Dr Euan Kay (ek28@st-andrews.ac.uk) and Dr. Larissa von Krbek (larissa.vonkrbek@uni-bonn.de)

Terms and conditions of scholarships for St Andrews can be found here: Awards general terms and conditions.

Please contact us should you have any questions regarding the scholarship: pgscholarships@st-andrews.ac.uk

Immediately

Scholarship application deadline

April 24, 2025

By mid-April 2025. Awards are subject to final signatures of contracts between the parties and successful admission to both institutions.

Next steps

Successful scholarship applicants will be invited to apply for admission to both universities from the end of March 2025, and then formal outcomes of the position will be made, subject to provision of full application details and materials for entry to the programme at the agreed entry point in 2025-2026.

Successful scholarship applicants must meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place. Please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes at St Andrews and the PhD application guidelines at Bonn.