• Home
• Schools and Departments
• Study with us
  • Undergraduate courses
  • Foundation Year
  • Masters degrees
  • PhD research
    • Funding
    • Support
    • Midlands4Cities
    • Find your supervisors - Midlands4Cities
    • Modern Languages Grant Scheme
  • Student experience
  • Facilities
  • Music in Nottingham
  • Global skills
• Research
• Working for the Faculty
• Arts in the community
• Arts into business
• Equality, diversity and inclusion
• News, events and social media
• Live, Experiential and Digital Diversification
• UNESCO City of Literature
• Global Culture Festival
• Contact us

Midlands4Cities (M4C) PhD funding

Be part of a thriving community of PhD students producing world-class research.

Midlands4Cities offers you:

• Funding including tuition fees, maintenance grant, and research development, training and placement funds
  
• Supervision from experienced academics across eight universities
• Placements with regional, national and international partners*
• Training in both research and career skills
• Networking and collaboration with other M4C students, our academics and research partners

The Midlands4Cities offer is open to both home and international applicants.

Explore the full M4C offer

Become an M4C student at the University of Nottingham

There are three steps to applying:

Step 1 - Find your supervisors

Your supervisory team will depend on the type of award you apply for.

• Open Doctoral Award (ODA) - build your own supervisory team from 8 universities as well as M4C's partners across the cultural, creative, heritage and business sectors.
• Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDA) - take advantage of one of our unique partnership projects where your supervision team is already set.

Find out more about supervisors and awards

Step 2: Apply to the University of Nottingham

You must do this before you apply for M4C funding as you need your University Applicant ID to submit your M4C form.

Our postgraduate study pages give full details on:

• the application process
• key dates
• eligibility criteria

as well as help to write your research proposal.

Apply to research at Nottingham

Step 3: Apply to M4C for funding

You do this using the M4C online application portal. This provides:

• detailed guidance notes on how to apply for funding
• a referees reference form
• the online application form.

Application deadline for 2023 entry is noon, Wednesday 11 January 2023.

Apply to Midlands4Cities for funding

I wouldn't have done this if I didn't have Midlands4Cities funding. I wouldn’t have been able to give up three to four years of my life without a fixed income, so the Midlands4Cities funding has been fundamental.

Find out more about the outstanding research culture at the University of Nottingham

*Placements disclaimer

If your course does not have a compulsory placement, integrated year in industry or compulsory year abroad where there is already an opportunity to undertake a work placement as part of that experience, you may be able to apply to undertake an optional placement year. While it is the student's responsibility to find and secure a placement, our Careers and Employability Service will support you throughout this process. Contact placements@nottingham.ac.uk to find out more.

The school/faculty you are joining may also have additional placement opportunities. Please visit the school/faculty website for more information.

Please note: In order to undertake an optional placement year, you will need to achieve the relevant academic requirements as set by the university and meet any requirements specified by the placement host. There is no guarantee that you will be able to undertake an optional placement as part of your course.