Graduate Funding

The Department is committed to providing excellent support to graduate students. We offer a range of internal and external scholarships and support schemes for graduate students to help with tuition fees and maintenance costs. The department is currently extending its graduate funding. We offer full funding to our MPhil+DPhil students for the first five years of the programme. In addition, we offer full funding or complement external funding to most of our DPhil and PRS/DPhil students for the first three years of the doctoral programme, with a potential extension to a fourth-year funding. We hope to be able to extend this funding to all our DPhil-PRS/DPhil students.

The standard full funding package covers tuition fees and maintenance costs at the UKRI level for the first two years of the DPhil. In the third year of the DPhil, tuition fees or continuation charges (as applicable) are covered, together with a stipend, which, if complemented with a Graduate Teaching Assistantship, amounts to the UKRI stipend. 

In order to succeed in funding all our DPhil students, it is important that students apply to all eligible funding sources.

Many of our students are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council via the Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership. To be considered for this funding scheme, candidates must select ‘ESRC Grand Union DTP Studentships in Social Sciences’ in the University of Oxford scholarships section of the University's graduate application form. You must also complete a Grand Union DTP Application Form and upload it, together with your graduate application form, by the relevant January deadline for your course. See the Grand Union DTP website for more information on ESRC funding. ESRC awards are open to all candidates (including international students), however DTPs are limited to awarding a maximum of 30% of studentships to international students.

All successful MPhil and DPhil applicants who apply by the 19th January 2024 are automatically considered for internal University funding from over 70 scholarship funds for which they meet the eligibility criteria.

There are also over 15 University scholarship schemes that require additional application. Please check whether you are eligible for those. You may use the Fees, Funding and Scholarship Search tool to identify the schemes that suit you.

Four fully funded Swire Scholarships are available for applicants who are permanent residents of Japan, Chinese mainland or Hong Kong SAR and have completed the majority of their formal education in their country/region of permanent residency. For all those who will commence study on a course offered by St Antony's College in 2024/25 (both MPhil and DPhil applicants are eligible). Swire Scholarships | St Antony's College (ox.ac.uk). This scholarship requires a separate application and candidates need to complete an online form and submit it by 5pm (UK time) on 4th March 2024.

St Antony's DAC Economics Scholarship is open to an incoming graduate student applying for MPhil Economics who has completed their undergraduate degrees in countries that receive official development assistance from the OECD (a full list can be found here).

The funding deadline for all graduate courses in the Department of Economics is the 19th January 2024. Applications submitted after this date will not be considered for funding offered by Oxford. Funding deadlines for other University courses can be found on the relevant course page on the Graduate Admissions website.

The University provides guidance for funding from a variety of external sources depending on specialisation and geographic area.

In recent years, our MPhil and DPhil students are funded among others by the following scholarships:

 

Atkinson Scholarship

OUBEP Economics Scholarship

Black Academic Futures

Oxford Balliol Scholarship**

Clarendon Scholarship

Oxford Chellgren Scholarship**

Coombs Scholarship**

Oxford China Council Scholarship*

David Walton Scholarship*

Oxford Qatar Thatcher Scholarship**

ESRC*

Oxford Thatcher Scholarship**

Magdalen-Economics Scholarship

Richards Scholarship**

Merton-Economics Scholarship**

Rhodes Scholarship*

Nuffield-Economics Scholarship**

Unicredit Scholarship

Nuffield Scholarship**

Wolf Scholarship**
Godfrey Tyler scholarship**  

(*) requires additional application, (**) tenable in a particular College.

 

In addition, the Department offers a small number of bursaries1 to second and third-year DPhil students who have not secured full funding from other sources.

DPhil students staying for a fourth year can also apply for a bursary for an additional year of funding. The coverage of the fourth year is like the standard third-year DPhil Funding.

For final-year DPhil students in macroeconomics or finance or related fields, the Department offers the David Walton Distinguished Doctoral Scholarships for one year. Successful candidates undertake an internship of up to three months duration with either the Bank of England or Goldman Sachs, or possibly the Treasury Department, for which they will be paid separately by the host organisation.

The Department actively hires MPhil and DPhil students as Research Assistants and DPhil students as Graduate Teaching Assistants throughout the academic year in order to provide students with valuable research and teaching experience, increase financial support, and stimulate students to contribute to the academic and research activities at the Department. All students, funded and unfunded, are welcome to apply for those.

Current students receive a call for applications to bursaries and Graduate Teaching Assistantships every year in Hillary term.

We also have smaller internal pots of money to support various research-related activities, such as conference attendance and research assistance, including the George Webb Medley and Oxford Economics Papers funds.

 

 

1 The coverage of bursaries is similar to the standard full funding package for the corresponding year.