Social Sciences: Fully Funded PhD Studentship in AI in Higher Education (RS780)

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is pleased to launch its Swansea University Research Excellence Scholarship (SURES) for full-time doctoral students to its seventh cohort, commencing in October 2025. 

There are TWO fully funded scholarships available, applications are welcomed from four subject areas including the below. (The two highest scoring applications across all four schools will be awarded the scholarships.)

Each scholarship is offered for a maximum period of three years; SURES students are expected to submit their theses within this timescale.

Informal scholarship enquiries from applicants to prospective supervisors are warmly encouraged.

Subject area: School of Social Sciences

Project start date: October 2025 

Aligned programme of study: PhD in Economics

Mode of study:  Full-time  

Project description: 
AI in Higher Education: Experimental Insights into Motivational and Cognitive Barriers

This PhD project plans to explore the influence of student access to generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) software on learning motivation and outcomes at higher education institutions.  Against the backdrop that the use of generative AI will depend on many individual and contextual factors, the project employs a combination of carefully designed online and field experiments in real-world educational settings. These experiments aim to uncover how generative AI influences the effectiveness of different types of academic assignments, learning motivation, and what potential it offers to provide an inclusive learning environment, where learning disparities among students are reduced.

Scholarships open to UK fee eligible applicants only. 

Candidates must have achieved, or be expecting to achieve, a 1st class UK undergraduate degree (or equivalent international qualification), or a 2:1 UK undergraduate degree and a Distinction in a UK master’s degree (or international equivalent). 

• Where applicants have multiple master’s degrees, a distinction must be held in the degree that is most relevant to the intended PhD study.
• If you are currently studying for a master’s level qualification with an expected award date that is later than 01/10/2025, you should hold a minimum of an upper-second-class (2:1) honours degree.  
• You should be able to demonstrate a pass with a minimum grade average of at least 70% for your part-one master’s degree modules (the taught aspect of your master’s course rather than a research-focused dissertation) and submit your dissertation by no later than 30/09/2025. 

NB: If you hold a non-UK degree, please see the Swansea University degree comparisons to find out if you meet the eligibility criteria.  

Applicants must be able to begin their course of study in October 2025.  As a cohort-based programme, deferral to an alternative enrolment window within the academic year or to another academic year is not permissible. 

English Language: IELTS 6.5 Overall (with no individual component below 6.5) or Swansea University recognised equivalent. For further information, please see the Swansea University English Language Entry Policy.
If you have any questions regarding your academic or fee eligibility based on the above, please email pgrscholarships@swansea.ac.uk with the web-link to the scholarship(s) you are interested in.

Please note that both the degree and language-proficiency entry requirements for SURES are higher than the baseline standard for entry that is stipulated for most of the PhD programmes at Swansea University. 

Each SURES scholarship includes tuition fees and a stipend (currently £19,237 for 2024/25) – reviewed annually at the UKRI standard rate and a £1,000 annual training allowance to support immersive training experiences, conference attendance, engagement with industry and international collaborative opportunities.

To apply, please complete your application online with the following information:

1. Course choice: Economics PhD / Full-time / 3 Years / October 25 

In the event you have already applied for the above programme previously, the application system may issue a warning notice and prevent application, in this case, please email pgrscholarships@swansea.ac.uk where staff will be happy to assist you in submitting your application.

     2. Start year – please select 2025

     3. Funding (page 8 on the application process) –

• ‘Are you funding your studies yourself?’ – please select No
• ‘Name of Individual or organisation providing funds for study’ – please enter ‘RS780 - SURES FHSS'

*It is the responsibility of the applicant to list the above information accurately when applying, please note that applications received without the above information listed will not be considered for the scholarship award.

One application is required per individual Swansea University led research scholarship award; applications cannot be considered listing multiple Swansea University led research scholarship awards.

NOTE: Applicants for PhD/EngD/ProfD/EdD - to support our commitment to providing an environment free of discrimination and celebrating diversity at Swansea University you are required to complete an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Monitoring Form in addition to your programme application form.  

Please note that completion of the EDI Monitoring Form is mandatory; your application may not progress if this information is not submitted.

As part of your online application, you MUST upload the following documents (please do not send these via email):

• CV
• Research proposal (essential to matching applications to the available projects) 
• Degree certificates and transcripts (if you are currently studying for a degree, screenshots of your grades to date are sufficient)
• A cover letter including a ‘Supplementary Personal Statement’ to explain why the position particularly matches your skills and experience and how you choose to develop the project
• Two reference (academic or previous employer) on headed paper or using the Swansea University reference form. Please note that we are not able to accept references received citing private email accounts, e.g. Hotmail. Referees should cite their employment email address for verification of reference
• Evidence of meeting English Language requirement (if applicable)
• Copy of UK resident visa (if applicable)
• Confirmation of EDI form submission

Informal enquiries are welcome; please contact: Prof Bastian Westbrock - bastian.westbrock@swansea.ac.uk 

*External Partner Application Data Sharing – Please note that as part of the scholarship application selection process, application data sharing may occur with external partners outside of the University, when joint/co- funding of a scholarship project is applicable.

Other Subject area's available:

• School of Law - Democratic Participation and Prisoners (Dr Michelle Coleman & Dr Tom Hannant) 
• School of Culture and Communication - Advancing Innovative Thinking and Research (Federico Lopez-Terra) 
• School of Management - Sustainable Pedagogy in Business and Management Schools (Dr Matt Wilson & Dr Sandra Dettmer)