Graduate Funding

The Department is committed to providing excellent support to graduate students. We offer a range of internal and external scholarships and support schemes for graduate students to help with tuition fees and maintenance costs. The department is currently extending its graduate funding. We offer full funding to our MPhil+DPhil students for the first five years of the programme. In addition, we offer full funding or complement external funding to most of our DPhil and PRS/DPhil students for the first three years of the doctoral programme, with a potential extension to fourth-year funding.

The standard full funding package covers tuition fees and maintenance costs at the UKRI level for the first two years of the DPhil. In the third year of the DPhil, tuition fees are covered, together with a stipend, which, if complemented with a Graduate Teaching Assistantship, amounts to the UKRI stipend. 

In order to succeed in funding all our DPhil students, it is important that students apply to all eligible funding sources.

Many of our students are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council via the Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership. To be considered for this funding scheme, candidates must select ‘ESRC Grand Union DTP Studentships in Social Sciences’ in the University of Oxford scholarships section of the University's graduate application form. You must also complete a Grand Union DTP Application Form and upload it, together with your graduate application form, by the relevant January deadline for your course. See the Grand Union DTP website for more information on ESRC funding. ESRC awards are open to all candidates (including international students), however DTPs are limited to awarding a maximum of 30% of studentships to international students. ESRC Masters funding will not usually be available to applicants who already hold a social science Masters degree. Candidates who hold a social science Masters should apply for the doctoral programme. 

All successful MPhil and DPhil applicants who apply by the 28th January 2025 deadline are automatically considered for internal University funding from over 70 scholarship funds for which they meet the eligibility criteria.

There are also over 15 University scholarship schemes that require additional application. Please check whether you are eligible for those. You may use the Fees, Funding and Scholarship Search tool to identify the schemes that suit you.

Four fully funded Swire Scholarships are available for applicants who are permanent residents of Japan, Chinese mainland or Hong Kong SAR and have completed the majority of their formal education in their country/region of permanent residency. MPhil Economics and DPhil Economics applicants will be eligible for this scholarship offered by St Antony's College in 2025/26. Swire Scholarships | St Antony's College (ox.ac.uk). This scholarship requires a separate application and candidates need to complete an online form and submit it by 5pm (UK time) on 3rd March 2025.

St Antony's DAC Economics Scholarship is open to an incoming graduate student applying for MPhil Economics who has completed their undergraduate degrees in countries that receive official development assistance from the OECD (a full list can be found here).

The funding deadline for all graduate courses in the Department of Economics is the 28th January 2025. Applications submitted after this date will not be considered for funding offered by Oxford. Funding deadlines for other University courses can be found on the relevant course page on the Graduate Admissions website.

The University provides guidance for funding from a variety of external sources depending on specialisation and geographic area.

In recent years, our MPhil and DPhil students have been funded by the following scholarships among others: