Advice on PhD

[Academic1]

Hi, I was kindly advised to post this here instead of on chat!

So I went back to uni as a mature student, did a diploma and then a masters in a social studies related field which I loved.
I would really, really like to do a PhD and take it as far as I can and maybe get into a research based role but I'm not sure how to go about this? Does anyone know where to start to apply for PhD funding or where you can get funding from? I'm not in a position to self fund and I'm a lone parent so I'm not even sure how that would work? Any advice on how i can make this happen or avenues i should look into? I'm in NI if that makes a difference.

Did you not get any advice from your masters course? I teach on a masters and this is one of the things we talk about (all masters should). Is there someone from that course you can ask? Was your master all or part taught, i.e. did you do a research topic as part of that? Was there anyone in an area you might want to pursue as a PhD - or could at least give some advice/direction? Applying for independent research funding is intense and highly completive - you need a very good masters (it's not about whether you are competent to do the work - it's competition for funding). You also need enthusiastic support from your potential PhD supervisor (as this is part of the funding application) - so you need to identify who they might be and see if they would be willing to take you on. If they are - they can advise on who to apply to funding for. Best do that this term to apply for Oct 26. (I was a very mature student and applied to the dept I did my masters in.) Funding is like hens teeth but if you want to do this you just have to give it a go and hope for the best. I got funding and I had a toddler - warning: it's not a lot to live on especially if you need any childcare.

You could look at jobs.ac.uk for funded PhD projects. Not many in social sciences but they do happen.

Ask your Masters tutors. And have a look at funding via UKRI - the ESRC will be the funding council for social sciences.

But be very aware: funded PhDs are few, and highly competitive, and it's unlikely there'll be an academic job at the end.

Your university will have someone in each school in a position called something like 'Higher Degrees Tutor' or 'PGR Coordinator'. This person will usually be the first point of contact for inquiries within the school. If you can't find this information on the university's website, you can contact the postgraduate research office and they will be able to put you in touch.

They will have specific knowledge of funding in your field. Unfortunately, it is becoming harder and herder to do a funded PhD outside of STEM.

Agree with PPs that you need to talk to the uni you were at or want to go to about funding. Where I used to work, we were part of several PhD funding consortia (ultimately funded by UKRI) but we also had internal funding for specific candidates (e.g. certain minorities) and programmes/ projects.

Do you know what you want to work on? Who you want to work with? I often received cold emails from prospective students who wanted to work with me (humanities), but I would absolutely expect them to know what topic/ research question they wanted to work on and why they wanted to work with me/ at my institution. An informal approach is fine to start with, I'd then ask them to send me a detailed proposal and, depending on what that was like and, then, how they responded to any feedback I gave them on it, we would take things further to an official application. Once they had been offered a place to study, we could then put them forward to consortia/ internal funding. The deadlines for those are usually around the end of the calendar year.

While academic jobs are becoming harder and harder to get, and it's not a route I'd recommend to anyone anymore, there are potential research careers in the social sciences outside universities. Civil service, charity sector (although also in trouble), think tanks, etc, all have researchers and having skills/ experience in social science methodologies (esp. if you can combine quant and qual) would enable you to go in that direction.