Carnegie PhD Scholarships

In recent years the challenging economic environment has forced the Carnegie Trust to scale back its grant-making activities, including the number of PhD Scholarships it awards. This year we only awarded 11, which still accounts for the lion’s share of our grant-making but makes a tiny impact in percentage terms. In this context, the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Trust has decided to pause its current PhD Scholarship scheme for the time being, in order to re-balance its grant portfolio to better fulfil the aims of the Trust’s Charter.

The Carnegie PhD Scholarships have been part of the Carnegie programme since 1903. Many generations of academics have benefitted from the awards, whether as postgraduate students or as supervisors. Indeed, we have two PhD alumni on our Trustee board, with others acting as reviewers or advisers. We are therefore deeply conscious of the importance of the scheme to recipients, and it is with due recognition of the importance of these awards in the past that we have, with great reluctance and sadness, come to the conclusion that we cannot continue the scheme in its current format in the future. This decision will, however, allow us to re-instate the Carnegie Vacation Scholarships for Undergraduates and our Research Incentive Grants for Early Career Researchers closer to their pre-pandemic levels.

The Trust remains fully committed to funding our current Carnegie PhD Scholars through to the end of their Scholarship and there will be no impact on the awards already made by us.