Student Development Funding (SDF)

This funding is only available to students who are in receipt of funding from the AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Celtic Languages.

This funding is primarily available to extend the duration of PhD studentships flexibly and responsively – i.e. to support an appropriate range of training for AHRC-funded students according to their individual needs.

The funding will also be used to support needs-based training for individual students, in the form of development opportunities beneficial to a student’s doctoral research and/or personal development as a researcher.

SDF is not available to provide an extended stipend for the thesis pending/writing up period.

Awards will be made on the basis of strategically-argued applications. Decisions on funding will be taken by a sub-committee of the CDT Awards and Executive Committees, and monitored and reviewed annually by the Executive Committee. Any extension to the period of doctoral study must be agreed by the home institution and confirmed in the application.

SDF can cover funded extensions to PhD study for:

  • Placements/internships of up to six months duration in total over the period of the studentship, where a student is undertaking a placement that is not an integral part of the research project.
  • International placements to develop language skills, where a student requires an extended period overseas to develop specific language skills to undertake his/her research project successfully. It is expected that the need to develop language skills will have been agreed at the start of the award, i.e. in these cases the student’s initial offer will be for more than 3 years’ funding.
  • Specific skills development, where extended time is intended for students who need to acquire additional skills, for example high-level methodological skills, or significant and demanding new discipline skills, or where the research cannot be undertaken in full without fieldwork being undertaken which presents significant challenges, for example, of a methodological or practical nature.
  • Archival work/fieldwork, although significant fieldwork and/or archival work should have been built into the original proposal and extensions agreed at the start of the project, it is recognised that these needs may become apparent as the research progresses.
  • Impact activity, for example planning and delivering a public engagement project of significant scale.

SDF can also be used to support the additional costs of:

  • Conferences: presenting papers at conferences where these are justified as offering key skills development opportunities for researchers. Funds are limited and, to ensure they are focused on high quality skills development opportunities, applications will have to be clear which additional skills will be developed through training opportunities, for instance a relevant visit to an archive, workshops/masterclasses, training events attached to the conference.
  • Fieldwork: for example travel and/or subsistence costs associated with fieldwork.
  • Impact activity: for example materials, equipment, room hire etc.
  • High-cost additional training external to the CDT: including travel and accommodation costs where these are fully justified in the proposal.

Students in receipt of ‘fees only’ funding may also benefit from SDF provided this does not take the form of a stipend award.

Deadlines for SDF applications are: 31 March, 31 May and 31 October. Applications between these deadlines will only be considered in exceptional circumstances.

Please note that it may take up to 4 weeks to receive the outcome of your application. If successful, you will be required to submit on completion of your trip, a Celtic CDT Completion Certification and relective piece. 

Please apply using the application form available at the link below. Completed forms should be emailed in PDF format to arts-cdt-celtic@glasgow.ac.uk

Celtic CDT RTSG-SDF Application form