Bracewell Travelling Scholarship 

The Scholarship honours the long tradition of mutual curiosity between the UK and eastern, central and southeastern Europe by supporting PhD students from and studying in the SSEES region (excluding Germany and Russia) who wish to spend time at UCL working with SSEES academics, pursuing their own research and contributing as appropriate to the intellectual life of the School.

The award will cover the equivalent of tuition fee costs for one term, plus a living cost stipend of £5,500. The total value of the scholarship is therefore estimated to be in the region of £12,500 in total.

For the 2026-27 academic year there will be one Scholarship awarded. Ordinarily, the Bracewell Scholar will use their Scholarship during the Autumn term (28 September – 18 December 2026) or the Spring term (11 January – 24 March 2027). Those with additional sources of funding to support further study at UCL may be permitted to join SSEES for a longer period and to use some of the prospective stipend funding to cover a longer period of tuition fees. Where you may wish to study at UCL for a longer period, please include details of this in your application materials.

To apply, send the following materials to ssees-research@ucl.ac.uk  by 30 April 2026:  

• Name of the SSEES academic(s) with whom you would like to work
• Valid email addresses for two academic referees at your home institution who are familiar with your work
• Academic transcripts for all higher education provided in English and in electronic format
• Personal statement
• Research proposal
• Confirmation from your home institution that your request to study abroad is supported
• Confirmation from your home institution that you are a registered research degree student.

After an internal selection process in SSEES, the successful candidate will then be invited to submit an application for admission to UCL via the Visiting Research Student scheme, when the exact duration of the visit will be confirmed. If your first language is not English, you must provide recent evidence that your spoken and written command of the English language is adequate for the programme e.g. ‘good’ level in accordance with UCL English Language Policy.