SOAS Teaching Scholarships 2026/27: Historical Reference for Fully Funded PhD Support

SOAS Teaching Scholarships 2026/27: Historical Reference for Fully Funded PhD Support

This page is a historical reference. The SOAS Teaching Scholarships round for the 2026/27 academic year closed at 12 noon UK local time on 21 March 2026. SOAS’s postgraduate research scholarships index currently lists the award as Closed, and the scholarship page does not announce a later round. There is therefore no open application window or confirmed future deadline to report here. Do not treat this archive entry as an invitation to apply for the closed round.

The award was a substantial doctoral funding opportunity run by SOAS University of London. It was designed for eligible students beginning a full-time MPhil/PhD programme in the 2026/27 academic year. Each scholarship covered tuition fees in full and included a maintenance allowance. The official page said the 2026/27 maintenance total would be confirmed closer to September 2026, with a minimum of £20,622. Because SOAS did not publish a final total on the page reviewed, this archive records the minimum rather than presenting a precise stipend that the source did not confirm.

The scholarship also included doctoral skills development and an opportunity to gain teaching experience. Successful recipients were expected to complete a fixed number of teaching hours during their time at SOAS, although the public scholarship page did not state the number of hours. That detail should be confirmed directly with SOAS before relying on it for workload or income planning.

At a glance

What the 2026/27 award offered

SOAS described this as a full-time MPhil/PhD scholarship rather than a small contribution toward study costs. The tuition element was covered in full. The award also included a maintenance allowance intended to provide living-cost support during the three-year full-time programme. The source did not give a final 2026/27 total, but it did promise a minimum of £20,622 and said the total would be confirmed closer to September 2026.

That wording matters for anyone using this page to compare doctoral funding. “Fully funded” here refers to the tuition and maintenance components described by SOAS; it does not mean that every personal or research expense was listed as covered. Applicants would still have needed to examine the admission offer, programme costs, visa arrangements where relevant, and any research expenses specific to their project. The public page also stated that the scholarship could not be held alongside another major scholarship or studentship.

The teaching element was part of the character of the award. SOAS said successful candidates would be involved in a fixed number of teaching hours and would gain research and teaching skills while pursuing the PhD. The page did not publish a schedule, rate, or workload breakdown. A historical reader should therefore understand teaching as an expected part of the scholarship experience, not assume that it was a separate unlimited employment arrangement or calculate extra income from it.

Eligibility recorded by SOAS

The 2026/27 call was open to UK/EU/Home and International/Overseas fee-paying students, subject to the specific candidate criteria. SOAS gave two main routes.

The first route was for permanent residents in the UK with Home fee status who belonged to the ethnic groups listed by the university: Black or Black British African, Black or Black British Caribbean, Black or Black British other, or Mixed Black or Black British.

The second route was for applicants ordinarily resident in Africa, Asia, or the Middle East. “Ordinarily resident” is the source’s wording; it should be read as a normal residence connection rather than a short visit, temporary trip, or past period of study. Applicants with a complicated residence or fee-status history would have needed to ask SOAS for a determination instead of relying on a general interpretation.

SOAS also stated that members of the SOAS Ebony Initiative were eligible for the Ebony Initiative studentships and should indicate participation in the appropriate section of the application form. This was an additional route mentioned on the official page, not a reason to assume that every Ebony Initiative participant automatically received a Teaching Scholarship.

One SOAS Teaching Scholarship was reserved for an applicant who was also a Palestinian national. The applicant still had to meet the general candidate criteria and had to be ordinarily resident in historic Palestine. SOAS defined that area on the page as the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or the population it described as Palestinian citizens in Israel. This reserved place was not a separate application process; it sat within the broader scholarship procedure and eligibility requirements.

All applicants also needed an offer of admission to an eligible full-time research programme by the time the scholarship selection panel took place. An applicant could not use the scholarship form as a substitute for applying to the MPhil/PhD programme. If an admission offer carried an English-language condition, SOAS required the applicant to meet it as soon as possible and no later than 10 May 2026.

What the selection process considered

SOAS said candidates would be assessed on academic merit by an advisory panel that had undergone diversity training and included at least three academic members from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. The assessment relied on information from both the scholarship application and the admission application.

The source identified prior results, references, publications, and the research proposal as evidence of academic attainment and research potential. It also singled out the widening participation statement. This means the statement was not merely an administrative declaration of eligibility. It formed part of the evidence the panel considered alongside the academic materials.

The scholarship page did not publish a numeric scoring rubric or a guaranteed award profile. Applicants should not infer that fitting an eligibility category alone was enough. A credible proposal, strong academic record, useful references, and a clear explanation of the applicant’s circumstances and goals were all relevant to the published assessment description.

The widening participation statement

The application required a short widening participation statement of no more than 800 words. SOAS asked applicants to outline how they qualified under the eligibility criteria. It suggested that applicants could discuss obstacles such as disability, growing up in a lower-income family, or being the first person in their family to attend university.

The statement also needed to address why the applicant wished to study at SOAS and how the scholarship and programme of study would affect their eventual career aims or community. A useful statement would have connected those points rather than treating them as unrelated prompts: explain the context, show how it shaped the route into research, identify why the chosen SOAS programme fitted the proposed work, and describe a realistic future use for the training.

Applicants did not need to turn the statement into a complete life history. The limit required selection and clarity. The academic application already carried the research proposal, references, transcripts, and other evidence. The widening participation statement had a different job: make the relevant access barriers and educational context understandable, then connect them to the purpose of doctoral study and the scholarship.

Application route used for the closed round

SOAS specified a two-step process.

Step one: apply for the research programme. Applicants first had to submit a complete application for an eligible full-time MPhil/PhD programme. SOAS directed applicants to its Doctoral School and its research-programme application guidance. The university warned that a complete admissions application could take up to four weeks to be considered by the department, with waits of up to six weeks during busy periods.

Step two: apply for the scholarship. After applying for a course, applicants could obtain the admissions-portal login credentials needed to submit the scholarship application. The scholarship application had to be submitted through that portal by 12 noon UK local time on 21 March 2026. If the scholarship did not appear in the portal, SOAS advised checking the eligibility criteria and contacting [email protected].

Late or incomplete applications were not considered. Applicants therefore needed to leave time for the programme application, portal access, the scholarship form, the widening participation statement, and any references or supporting documents required by the admission application. Anyone with an English condition had to arrange the relevant test early enough to meet the 10 May 2026 requirement.

The official page gave different contacts for the two parts of the process. Questions about the programme application belonged with the Doctoral School admissions team at [email protected]. Questions about the scholarship procedure belonged with [email protected]. Those contacts are more reliable than trying to infer a current process from an old checklist or from a third-party listing.

Documents and preparation for a future call

The 2026/27 page did not publish a separate exhaustive document checklist for the scholarship, so this archive should not invent one. The admission application was the foundation of the process, and its required materials would have depended on the chosen MPhil/PhD programme. In practical terms, a future applicant would want to have a research proposal, academic records, references, and any programme-specific materials ready before a new scholarship form opened. The exact requirements, file formats, and portal questions should be taken from the next official call.

The research proposal should explain a focused question, the relevant literature or debate, the proposed method, and why the project fits the selected department and supervisors. It should also be honest about access, languages, archives, fieldwork, ethics, and time. Strong subject knowledge does not remove the need to show that a three-year full-time project can be completed.

References should come from people who can comment on research ability, writing, independence, and preparation for doctoral work. A referee who knows the applicant’s recent academic work is usually more useful than someone whose connection is only prestigious. Giving referees the proposal and a clear deadline also reduces the risk of an otherwise complete application becoming incomplete.

The widening participation statement should be drafted separately from the proposal, then checked for consistency. The proposal should make the academic case; the statement should explain the access context, the reason for choosing SOAS, and the intended career or community benefit. Repeating the same paragraph in both documents would waste the limited space available.

Why this page remains useful as an archive

A closed scholarship page can still help prospective researchers understand the scale and shape of SOAS funding. This round shows that SOAS was willing to combine full tuition support, a maintenance allowance, doctoral skills development, and teaching experience for selected full-time MPhil/PhD candidates. It also shows that eligibility was deliberately tied to groups underrepresented in doctoral participation, including Black British Home-fee applicants and applicants ordinarily resident in Africa, Asia, or the Middle East.

The archive is also useful for planning questions to ask if SOAS publishes another round. A future call may change the deadline, eligible starting year, maintenance amount, teaching commitment, English-condition timing, or application portal instructions. None of those details should be carried forward automatically. The 2026/27 facts on this page belong to the closed round and are retained for comparison, not as a promise that the next call will use the same terms.

Status and official source

The 2026/27 SOAS Teaching Scholarships deadline was 21 March 2026 at 12 noon UK local time. The English-language condition date was 10 May 2026 where applicable. SOAS’s scholarship page stated that the award was for programmes beginning in the 2026/27 academic year, offered a minimum maintenance amount of £20,622, and described a three-year full-time programme. The university’s postgraduate research scholarships index marks the award Closed, and no next cycle is announced on the official pages checked for this update.

For the original eligibility wording, award description, and application instructions, use the official SOAS Teaching Scholarships page. Because this entry is historical, verify any future opportunity against a newly published SOAS page before preparing an application.