Category: Studentships

Vienna U: Teaching & Research Associate, Institute for Intercultural Communication (Austria)

“Studentships“Teaching and Research Associate (PhD Position), Institute for Intercultural Communication, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Vienna, Austria. Deadline: 28 January 2026.

“Do you want to understand how language and culture are connected and make a fundamental impact? We offer an environment where you can realize your full potential. At one of Europe’s largest and most modern business and economics universities. On a campus where quality of work is also quality of life. We are looking for support at the

Institute for Intercultural Communication
Part-time, 30 hours/week
Starting April 01, 2026, and ending after 6 years

We explore how culture shapes human interaction and discourse, especially in organizational communication. Our current projects investigate intercultural / multilingual face-to-face and video-mediated interactions (multimodal conversation analysis) and language, culture, and communication in the context of migration.

Our teaching focuses on intercultural communication, including cross-cultural competence training courses, applied research projects on migration and diversity, intercultural simulations, as well as general courses on intercultural business communication.

What to expect

  • Writing a dissertation: You will investigate your research topic in the field of intercultural (business) communication and spend a third of your working hours on writing your PhD dissertation. The outcomes of your research will be published in international academic journals.

  • Regular research exchange: You will regularly present and discuss your research at international conferences and at our Institute’s regular research meetings and data sessions.

  • Doctoral courses: You will enroll in WU’s PhD program and complete doctoral courses as part of your education.

  • Teaching: You will teach your own course and contribute to the development of courses and course materials in intercultural (business) communication

  • Research and teaching support: You will support administrative tasks related to research, teaching, research-to-practice activities, and self-governance and collaborate with our senior researchers on projects, proposals and papers.”

 

MITIME: 15 Studentships on Migration (EU)

“Studentships“

15 Ph.D. Studentships: MITIME, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Turkey, Spain, Belgium, and Netherlands. Deadline: 1 February 2026.

Applications are invited for 15 fully funded PhD positions, to begin in September 2026. Hired Doctoral Researchers will become members of MITIME, an EU-funded doctoral programme offering early-stage researchers international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral training. MITIME is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network focusing on how time shapes migration, inequality, and urban life in post-industrial Europe. They train early-stage researchers in cutting-edge theory, methods and transferable skills, and innovate approaches to understand human mobility as a multi-directional, contingent and relational process.

Each MITIME Doctoral Researcher will be employed full-time on a 36-month contract and enrolled in a PhD programme at one of the network’s seven partner universities in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, or Türkiye. Successful candidates will conduct original research on migration, temporality, and urban inequalities, and participate in all network-wide training and mobility activities.

Applicants to the programme must hold—or be close to completing—a Master’s degree in a relevant field (i.e. migration studies, anthropology, sociology, urban studies, social policy, political science, or public administration). Candidates should show a strong interest in collaborative, interdisciplinary research and in working in international.

Swansea U: PHD Studentship in Bilingualism & Linguistics (UK)

“Studentships“Ph.D. Studentship: Bilingualism and Linguistics, Swansea University, Wales, UK. Deadline: 11 December 2025.

Open to: UK and international applicants

Funding Provider: ESRC WGSSS 50%; Swansea University 50%

Prospective students are invited to propose a research topic for doctoral study in the language-related areas of expertise of staff in Applied Linguistics. Broadly, these areas include research that addresses:

  • Bilingualism/Multilingualism
  • Second language acquisition
  • Lexical studies
  • and/or the structure, meaning and use of language in linguistics, psycho- and sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, psychology, sociology, language technology and education.

Supervision can also be held jointly with colleagues in Welsh, Modern Languages, Translation, Psychology and Education.

U Cambridge: PhD Studentship: Colombo: Layered Histories in the Global South City (UK)

“Studentships“Ph.D. Studentship: Colombo: Layered Histories in the Global South City Studentship, University of Cambridge, England, UK. Deadline: 31 August 2025.

The UKRI-funded 5-year project, ‘Colombo: Layered Histories in the Global South City’, selected for funding by the European Research Council under its ‘HORIZON’ programme, is recruiting to its doctoral studentship. This is a fully funded full-time international studentship for three years, commencing January 2026. The prospective doctoral student will focus their attention within the broad field of the ‘Environmental and/or cultural history of Colombo’, ideally in the early modern or modern era. Given the project’s aim to generate dialogue between Sri Lanka and Europe, candidates applying from Sri Lanka are especially encouraged.

Colombo has a deeply layered imperial past. It came under a succession of European empires, Portuguese (first trading post in 1518), Dutch (1656-1796) and British (1796-1948). It was also pivotal to the early globalisation of Islam and has housed a series of diasporic and minority communities. This project interrogates how invaders and residents made a city in an unstable environment at the centre of the Indian Ocean, in which arose a diverse society, generating an abundance of cultural production and a sequence of violent politics. The four pathways of research are as follows:

  • In environmental terms, this multiply-colonised and repeatedly-engineered city is built in a wetland without a significant natural harbour;

  • In social terms, in a heavily nationalised state, the city has resisted indigeneity, as it is inhabited by many minority communities with long narrations of origin;

  • As for culture, Colombo was represented in keeping with recurrent motifs, as a site of transit across the Indian Ocean, including for enslaved and indentured labour as well as settlers;

  • And on politics, the heavy work needed, at the bridge of sea and land set one context for the rise of urban violence between communities in the midst of civil war in addition to sustained strikes and new political movements.

    At its broadest perspective, the project aims to develop resources with which to consider the pasts, presents and futures of this global South city as located within the remit of other global South cities elsewhere.

The doctoral candidate’s work on this project will fall under themes 2) environment and/or 4) culture. This five-year project is led by Professor Sujit Sivasundaram. The successful applicant will join a team of researchers, including postdoctoral fellows and an existing doctoral student. Their research will contribute to a wider collaborative project.

The doctoral studentship will pay full tuition fees at the University of Cambridge over three years. It also provides a maintenance allowance of £20,780 per year and a budget for training and research.

This studentship is only open to international applicants (excluding UK, including EU and EEA). Candidates applying from Sri Lanka are especially encouraged given the grant’s formal aim to generate dialogue on these research questions between Sri Lanka and Europe. Preference will be given to candidates demonstrating competence in both Sinhala and Tamil, with competence in one of these language for research purposes being an essential requirement for the successful candidate.

Utrecht U: Studentship: Recognizing Multicultural Strengths of Youth via Social Networks at Work (Netherlands)

“Studentships“PhD Studentship: Recognizing Multicultural Strengths of Youth via Social Networks at Work, Utrecht University, Netherlands. Deadline: 17 August 2025.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences is looking for a PhD candidate to study social and psychological factors that influence youths’ transition to the labor market.

In the Netherlands, adolescents with a migration background are less likely to find (adequate) internships and first-time jobs compared to their peers without a migration background. To date, research primarily tends to focus on how a multicultural background can lead to difficulties when entering the labor market, including more discrimination, less social support, and fewer relevant working experiences compared to monocultural peers. In the current project, we take a novel approach by examining the recognition of beneficial strengths that adolescents with a migration background may bring to the labor market.

People growing up in difficult conditions develop enhanced abilities, not despite, but precisely because of their challenging experiences. Research suggests that by navigating and negotiating diverse cultural contexts, multicultural individuals can gain rich knowledge and valuable skills (e.g., perspective taking, flexibility, creativity) that can benefit youth in their internships and jobs. Yet, how does the recognition of multicultural strengths emerge among migrant youth? Do employers also recognize and value such multicultural strength among migrant youth? And can the recognition of multicultural strengths be leveraged by both youth and employers to increase chances on the labor market?

This PhD project consists of two research objectives.

Objective 1: examining how social networks contribute to the recognition of multicultural strengths in multicultural youth and potential employers. Social networks refer to the web of social relationships individuals are embedded in, such as connections with friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, and acquaintances. These networks are not merely sources of emotional support but play a central role in influencing attitudes and perceptions, as well as migrants’ chances on the labor market. You will collect ego-centric network data using a novel visualized network-data collection tool specifically designed to survey complex personal networks.

Objective 2: examining the effect of recognizing multicultural strengths among multicultural youth and potential employers on the labor market integration of multicultural youth. You will design experiments to test the direct influence of a) adolescents’ recognition of their multicultural strengths on job-related emotion, motivation and behavior and b) employers’ recognition of multicultural strengths on job applications from multicultural youth.

The project will be supervised by Verena Seibel (Interdisciplinary Social Science), Sheida Novin (Development Psychology), and Tobias Stark (Interdisciplinary Social Science), an interdisciplinary team, combining insights from sociology, developmental psychology, and social psychology.

Maastricht U: PhD Studentship in Sustaining Borders and Displacement Through Refugee Entrepreneurship (Netherlands)

“Studentships“Sustaining Borders and Displacement Through Refugee Entrepreneurship Ph.D. Studentship, Maastricht University, Netherlands. Deadline: 31 August 2025.

The Department of Society Studies is looking for a PhD candidate to undertake in-depth ethnographic research on the bordering practices in entrepreneurship and other life-sustaining programs for refugees in protracted situations in the Global South. You will be part of the Globalisation, Transnational, and Development research group at Maastricht University.

For many refugees, sustaining life is a catch-22. On one hand, refugees living indefinite periods of displacement are often perceived as a burden to their countries of asylum. On the other hand, they are restricted from and can be punished for obtaining employment or other sources of livelihood that would allow them to become self-reliant. ‘Durable solutions’ to manage refugees’ return, local integration, or resettlement continue to be unattainable for the majority of the world’s refugee population. Institutions such as UNHCR and other state and non-state actors have turned towards more ‘comprehensive solutions’ that promote refugees’ self-reliance and economic inclusion in the society in which they live. This research aims to critically investigate how such programmes, in the form of entrepreneurship training and other youth employment initiatives designed to help refugees autonomously navigate the informal urban economies in the ‘Global South’, may also entail bordering practices that shape refugees’ continued experiences of displacement.

The PhD candidate will investigate entrepreneurship programmes and other initiatives that promote refugees’ self-reliance while living indefinite periods of displacement. These initiatives often target young refugees, which make up the majority of refugees, and are promoted as opportunities for refugees to learn new skills, widen networks, and improve future prospects after resettlement, despite declining opportunities for resettlement. The PhD candidate will get an opportunity to develop and undergo in-depth ethnographic research in a refugee asylum country in the Global South, preferably in Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. The research will engage with the following critical perspectives:

  1. A youth-centric perspective to understand how refugee entrepreneurship and other self-reliance programmes shape the experiences of young refugees, surviving and thriving amidst the fraught realities they face during displacement.
  2. An urban-refugee perspective to understand how refugee entrepreneurship and other self-reliance programmes are designed and implemented by state and non-state actors that support refugees in finding opportunities in the underregulated informal urban economies where they live.
  3. A border-making perspective to understand how refugee entrepreneurship and other self-reliance programmes are potentially used as border governing structures by state and non-state actors to keep refugees in protracted situations while not according them status.

The research project will be based on multi-scalar ethnographic research comparing different types of entrepreneurship and other self-reliance programmes in the PhD candidate’s chosen case study country. It will explore how these programmes are experienced by the refugees that participate in them, the trainers that are involved in designing and delivering the programmes, and the international organisations that fund them.

Oxford University: Rhodes Scholarship (UK)

“Studentships“Rhodes Scholarship for either MA or Ph.D. Studentship, Oxford University, Oxford, England, UK. Deadline: 1 August 2025.

The Rhodes Scholarship is a fully-funded postgraduate award which enables talented young people from around the world to study full-time at the University of Oxford. The Rhodes Scholarship is merit-based, with the purpose of developing public-spirited leaders, and to promote international understanding and peace through an international community of Scholars.

Applying for the Scholarship is a challenge, but it is an experience which has helped generations of young people to succeed. They encourage applications from talented students everywhere.

Rhodes Scholars go to the UK for two or more years and can apply to study most full-time postgraduate courses in almost any field offered by Oxford University. (Available for those wanting a PHD, an MA, or even a second BA.) If your country is not listed, you can apply for a Global Scholarship if you meet the eligibility criteria.

U Leiden: PhD Studentships in Interpersonal Conflicts & Violence (Netherlands)

“Studentships“Interpersonal Conflicts and Violence, 3 Ph.D. Studentships, University of Leiden, Netherlands. Deadline: 18 July 2025

(If the topic interests you, but you already have a PHD, there is also a postdoctoral researcher position available with the same team.)

Why and how do interpersonal conflicts turn physically violent? What are the turning points towards the beginning and ending of violence in encounters between civilians and between police and civilians? If you want to work on these questions, have a master’s degree in communication science, social science, or psychology, and would like to conduct qualitative video analysis, this may be the position for you.

The main aim of this ERC TURNING VIOLENT research is to identify turning points towards one-sided violence in interpersonal conflicts. Projects will focus on conflicts between civilians or between police and civilians in Berlin, Paris, or London. The team will be using publicly available video data, complemented with video elicitation interviews. They are seeking candidates who are interested in learning or who are already experienced in video based ethnomethodological conversation analysis and multimodal analysis and who are comfortable working with qualitative research methods and video annotation tools (e.g. ELAN, NVivo, or similar).

Erasmus U Rotterdam: PhD Studentship in Doing Diversity (Netherlands)

“Studentships“Doing Diversity: Street-level decisions in super diverse neighborhoods Ph.D. Studentship, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. Deadline: 31 July 2025.

New levels of migration and mobility have changed the face of European cities, such as Malmö. This had led to changing ‘superdiverse’ social realities, especially in ‘majority-minority’ neighbourhoods. The novelty of this emerging situation creates challenging circumstances particularly for ‘street-level workers’ such as teachers, police officers and healthcare professionals. This demands renewed understanding of the decision-making process of street-level workers.

This PhD project ‘ICONIC’ (‘International Comparative research Of street-level decisions in superdiverse Neighbourhoods In Context’) funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO Vidi grant) and led by dr. Mark van Ostaijen, will comparatively study street-level decisions in superdiverse neighbourhoods and investigate whether and why these decisions differ between Malmö, Aarhus, Bilbao, Marseille, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

This 4-year PhD project is grounded in Rotterdam, but in strong collaboration with Malmö University. Therefore, you will be based at Erasmus University Rotterdam but for the fieldwork phase, collaboration is ensured with Malmö Institute for Migration Studies (MIM) which provides with the support base to conduct qualitative fieldwork in Malmö and Aarhus. As such, this PhD project does not require additional funding, nor means to conduct fieldwork, which is all covered by project funding.

Next to qualitative and ethnographic research skills it is important that the PhD candidate holds Swedish, English (and Danish) language skills.

A second studentship is available for the same project, but with fieldwork in Bilbao and Marseille. In that case, it is important that the PhD candidate holds Spanish (Basque), English (and French) language skills.

U Limerick PhD Studentship: ID Compression (Ireland)

“Studentships“PhD studentship in Psychology to work with the project ID-Compression, University of Limerick, Ireland. Deadline: 10 July 2025.

There are 2 studentships available for this project; the one that is most likely of interest to followers of this Center is for a PhD in Social Sciences with an interest in Social Identity.

The ERC-funded ID-COMPRESSION project explores the idea that issue-based polarization is information compressibility, where attitudes provide redundant (i.e. compressible) information about groups and identity. This framework conceptualizes people holding attitudes as a social information system where people are located by their own attitudes and can easily locate each-other in the social system from a few expressed attitudes. The more compressible the social information system, the fewer bits of information are required to locate people within it. These ideas flow from the social identity and social representations approaches to attitudes. Team members are particularly excited to explore conversion pathways where, they hypothesize, people’s willingness to adopt an idea will depend on their current location in the social information system. The PhD candidates will work as part of this team testing these ideas with secondary data, social experiments and simulations. They will particularly explore whether and how information becomes compressible when it is passed through simple social networks, whether social information compression maps to polarization (e.g. that people compress social information more in highly polarized contexts), and will experimentally test the concept of conversion pathways. Applied mathematicians in the group will develop metrics and methods for estimating compressibility, and for mapping it to other measures of polarization