AHRC PhD Landscape Awards

The Open University is pleased to offer doctoral funding to three outstanding PhD applicants through its Doctoral Landscape Awards.

Studentships cover tuition fees, stipend and research costs – for a duration of 3.5 years – starting in October 2026, in disciplines covered by the AHRC.

About the Landscape Award

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has introduced two new doctoral funding schemes – the Doctoral Landscape Award (DLA) and the Doctoral Focal Award (DFA) – as part of its Future Doctoral Programme. The new awards aim to provide more flexible, inclusive, and strategically aligned funding across the arts and humanities disciplines. The Open University has successfully secured an AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award for a five-year period, with the first cohort of doctoral students starting in 2026.

In addition to individual studentships, the Doctoral Landscape Award supports regional training hubs. The OU is a member of the South East Hub of nine HE institutions, along with Brighton, Kent, Oxford, Oxford Brookes, Reading, Royal Holloway, Southampton and Sussex. The OU will work together with the other Hub members to improve training support and offer opportunities for cohort development.

How to apply

Prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to contact potential supervisors in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and/or other OU Faculties to discuss their project ideas and how these may fit with existing research in the OU and with the AHRC’s remit. You can find more about OU postgraduate research in the Arts and Social Sciences and about the OU research areas more broadly. Prospective applicants are also encouraged to consider their proposed project’s potential for addressing societal challenges in line with the Open University’s research strategy (see OU’s Open Societal Challenges programme).

To apply for a studentship, please complete the following :

OU application form – please indicate on the OU application form that you are applying for this award by completing section C1, providing ‘Landscape Award - Discipline’ as the Advert Reference.
HESA form (mandatory for all applicants) – To help us identify your file easily, please make sure to include your name in the file name.
Research Proposal (no more than 1500 words)

Applications and supporting documents should be submitted via email to [email protected] by midday Friday 13 February 2026.

Eligibility

The studentships are open to all PhD applicants who meet the entry criteria at the OU. Any PhD project under the AHRC subject areas – including those based outside of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences – are eligible. At the OU, disciplines under the AHRC include Art History, Classical Studies, English and Creative Writing, History, Languages and Linguistics, Law, Music, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. More information of what research is supported can be found on AHRC's Remit, programmes and priorities.

We especially welcome interdisciplinary project proposals, and prospective supervisors may be drawn from more than one discipline.

Applications may be made for full-time or part-time study, but distance learning is not permissible under this scheme.

We welcome applications from all backgrounds, in keeping with the Open University's mission to broaden access to higher education.

Applications are also welcomed from candidates with lived experience of marginalisation and/or who face structural barriers to doctoral study. Professional and lived experience will be considered in addition to formal qualifications.

To meet the Open University's PhD admission requirements, it is essential that you have:

Good academic qualifications (i.e. a 1st or 2:1 in undergraduate degree in the relevant subject area from a UK institution or equivalent from a non-UK institution and/or a relevant Master's degree)
Demonstrable ability to produce high-level academic writing.
Evidence of the self-discipline and organizational skills required to complete a major academic project in three years and three months or part-time equivalent.
Willingness to participate in the broader intellectual community of The Open University (and, if selected, the Landscape award community as well).
If you are applying for a part-time PhD, please ensure that you are not employed at no more than 0.5 FTE.

Further documents required if you are successful

If you are successful in the interview, you’ll be requested to submit the following documents within a week or on short notice. Please ensure the documents are prepared in advance so you can provide them within the given timeframe.

Copies of degree certificates (bachelor’s degree or master’s degree)
Transcripts of academic qualifications (Official transcripts of bachelor’s or master’s degree only, other qualifications are not required)
Copies of your passport, or any other form of identification
Certified translations of degree certificates and transcripts (if applicable)
Copies of English language qualification certificates - SELTS (if applicable)
Documentation supporting a change of name (if applicable)

Selection process

Applications submitted on time will be considered by an internal academic panel and, if shortlisted, applicants will be invited to an interview. Successful applications in this first round will be put forward for consideration by an inter-Faculty Open University panel.