Find additional funding during your postgraduate degree
Academic/research funding
If you are aiming at an academic career, winning funding or prizes can:
- Demonstrate that you are a high calibre researcher who can compete effectively against your peers.
- Develop your skills in writing persuasively to a defined academic brief.
- Place you on the academic map of those judging the prize or funding bid.
- Depending on what the prize is, give you more freedom to attend conferences, visit other institutions - or buy that new laptop you need.
Check the eligibility criteria carefully - many awards will only be open to those currently undertaking doctoral (or even post-doctoral) research, or to students from a specific country or region.
- Research Professional Includes a funding database, which includes postgraduate prizes, funds for conferences and travel, (as well as larger scale academic funding). You need to be on campus or have your own account to gain access to this site.
- EPS Graduate and Researcher Development - Funding pages Written for physical scientists and engineers, but also some good sources for any discipline.
- Our University of Manchester Postgraduate Careers blog post, 'Want to fund that conference or study trip?', includes:
- advice on how to use the Research Professional database
- Euraxess funding search
- the Grants Register
- Turn2Us charitable database
- the Alternative Guide to Funding to source additional funding.
Employer/Non-academic competitions
In addition to academic awards, non-academic employers and other organisations occasionally run competitions aimed at specific groups of students, including some targeted exclusively at Masters or PhDs.
Many business or technical competitions require team entries - make friends with other postgraduates who want to compete!
There is no definitive list of employer/non-academic competitions - they are often launched at short notice, they may not run every year, and are often targeted towards a particular career or technical discipline. However, some good research skills may uncover your ideal opportunity:
- Try an online search, using the terms 'student competition'. Add your discipline or target career if you want a more focused list.
- Student Competitions' website does seem to have a good list of some of the big global student competitions. It is not fully comprehensive though - there are many more competitions available, particularly those based just in the UK or for non-commercial organisations.
- Keep your eyes peeled, particularly at the start of the academic year when many UK-based competitions are launched - and consider signing up to Twitter to spot news of these competitions as soon as they are announced.
Funding for further postgraduate study
The resources above are mainly aimed at providing additional funding for those who are already funded for their postgraduate degree.
If you are a Masters postgraduate (or doctoral researcher) looking to fund a further postgraduate degree:
- Our main Careers Service website includes advice on finding postgraduate opportunities and funding.
- Some of the resources covered in 'Academic/Research funding' also include details of full or part-scholarships for doctoral study.
