ESRC White Rose Social Science DTP scholarships
Applications to the ESRC White Rose DTP for 2027/28 entry are open.
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. At any one time, the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and research policy institutes.
The University of Sheffield is part of the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership - a collaboration between the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield, York, Sheffield Hallam, Hull, Bradford and Manchester Metropolitan University - and offers a range of ESRC Postgraduate Scholarships.
The White Rose DTP awards a number of Pathway (Including two Interdisciplinary Research awards and two Stuart Hall Foundation awards for Black British students), Advanced Quantitative Methods (AQM), and Advanced Data Analytics (ADA) awards through a central competition. Funding is also awarded via supervisor-led Collaborative Awards.
The ESRC White Rose DTP has issued the call for nominations for 2027 entry. Please refer to the ESRC White Rose DTP webpages for information about the call for nominations and the award schemes available.
ESRC White Rose DTP Pathway, Advanced Quantitative Methods, and Advanced Data Analytics awards
All the awards cover:
- tuition fees
- an annual, tax-free maintenance stipend at the standard UK research rate (£20,780 in 2025/26)
- access to Research Training Support Grant funds to support conference and other expenses
Students may apply for additional funding to support overseas fieldwork, language training and overseas institutional visits.
Applicants must hold at least a UK 2:1 Honours degree or equivalent (a lower classification can be accepted with additional qualifications, for example, a Master's degree).
Applicants applying for a +3.5 award must demonstrate that they have already completed the full research training requirements, either through a Master's Social Science Research degree or equivalent experience.
Applicants whose first language is not English must meet the University's English Language requirements.
Applicants must live within a reasonable distance of the University of Sheffield whilst in receipt of the Studentship (except for time spent on agreed fieldwork).
UK/Home and International (including EU) applicants are eligible to apply for the awards.
How to apply
- Your application for a 2027/28 White Rose DTP studentship must be submitted via the University of Sheffield WRDTP application form. You will need to complete the application in one sitting. Please ensure that you allow sufficient time for this prior to the application deadline.
- Please use this guidance document to assist you with the preparation of your responses. Please download the guidance document as an editable Word file, and save and complete the form as a Word file on your device. You will then need to transfer your responses into the University of Sheffield WRDTP application form by the application deadline.
- Please ensure that you observe the word limits for each field in the guidance Word Document, and that you do not input any additional text above the word limit into the University of Sheffield WRDTP application form. Where any field exceeds the word count, the applicant will be excluded from the competition. The word count is strictly enforced, with no lee way and the WRDTP will reject over-length applications outright.
- The University of Sheffield Scholarships Office will download your submitted application in Word format and will undertake word count checks on each of the sections. Eligible applications will then be shared with the relevant school.
- Only applications submitted via the University of Sheffield WRDTP application form will be accepted for the WRDTP competition for 2027/28. Applications submitted in prior rounds will not be accepted.
- Prior to submitting your funding application, you must ensure that you have also submitted a study application for a PhD place at the University of Sheffield via our online postgraduate application portal. You will not be able to submit your funding application before your study application as you are required to input your study application number into the funding application the University of Sheffield WRDTP application form.
The deadline for submitting your funding application via the University of Sheffield WRDTP application form is 17:00 GMT, 20 January 2027. This deadline is strictly applied. The form will close at 17:00 GMT and you will not be able to submit your application after that time, even if you are in the form at that time.
Some Schools have earlier internal deadlines by which they need to have received your study application. Please ensure that you have consulted your School so you are aware of their deadline.
Further information
If you have any queries about the ESRC White Rose DTP Scholarships, please see the DTP website or email pgr-scholarships@sheffield.ac.uk.
For more information about scholarships in general, please visit our Scholarships FAQ page.