Hundreds of researchers have signed a petition opposing a UK research funder’s plan to cut PhD studentships by more than a quarter.
Last month the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) announced it would reduce the number of funded doctoral places from 425 to 300 a year, a 29 per cent drop, as part of an overhaul of how it supports graduate students, with cuts falling largely at university-based doctoral training partnerships.
The reforms would allow several “strategic investments” in PhDs exploring, from 2026, how arts and humanities support the creative economy and “healthy planet” concerns, but also reflect how “the costs of PhDs are going up and our funding does not stretch as far as it used to”, explained the AHRC’s executive chair, Christopher Smith, as he outlined the plans on 22 September.
The move has, however, been condemned by hundreds of scholars, many of whom credit AHRC bursaries and scholarships for enabling them to take PhDs and establish themselves in academia, with more than 1,000 people signing a petition against the plan in less than a week.
