This is a resource for research centres, university departments and doctoral training initiatives.
This guide explains how the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre secured approval to ring‑fence an ESRC‑funded PhD studentship for a racially minoritised British candidate. It outlines the key planning steps, decision points, and challenges involved, and how we navigated them.
Designed for research centres, academic departments, and doctoral training initiatives, the guide offers a practical, transferable blueprint for developing lawful and effective positive action initiatives, in line with the Equality Act 2010.
Landscape
Access to doctoral education in the UK remains stratified and unequal. While universities are in some ways diverse at postgraduate level due to international recruitment, racially minoritised students are significantly under-represented in funded PhD pathways where eligibility is limited to British applicants. This matters because funded doctoral research scholarships are a key gateway to academic careers, research leadership and agenda-setting in knowledge generation.
Ring-fencing a studentship is a form of positive action designed to challenge structural exclusion and redistribute access to material resources within existing regulatory frameworks. In fields such as vulnerability and policing, research directly engages with redressing racialised state practices – this is important in order that our own practices match our research aims.
About our studentship
We ring-fenced a PhD studentship for a racially minoritised British candidate within the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre. This was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and based at the University of York.
This positive action in PhD recruitment built on and learnt from wider schemes established at the Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education (YCEDE) and at the Stuart Hall Foundation. We adopted learning from award-winning work by the University of Leeds Institute of Data Analytics. Read a case study about LIDA’s Data Scientist Development Programme. Visit the LIDA website for more information about their Data Scientist Development Programme.
Our positive action was for a PhD scholarship for research working specifically on issues of racism, policing and vulnerability. We note that whilst taking positive action especially on projects which involve anti-racist research is important, a more open approach could be to use positive action for a studentship that is not about racism/anti-racism. It is important to ensure diverse and accessible pathways for PhD funding awards regardless of the topic. A more open approach has been adopted in the LIDA approach (see above), which now also includes economic disadvantage in the positive action.
We had already secured the funding for the PhD in our Centre grant bid. We then made this eligible and open to racially minoritised British students.
The steps we took
The following strengthened our rationale for positive action on recruitment:
- Commitments to EDI were set out in our bid to the ESRC for Centre funding.
- The case for support in our bid underlined how inequality (including racial injustice) is important for state power and vulnerability; we underscored that our own practices as a research centre needed to be consistent with our research agenda.
- The University of York’s mission of being a university ‘for the public good’ was helpful as an underpinning rationale.
- Evidence-based work showed how funded PhD pathways in the UK remain racially stratified.
- The PhD related to race and racism in contexts of policing (see advert in Section 4). Our Centre’s Values and Principles emphasised the importance of lived experience in research in the area of vulnerability and policing. We recognise that positive action should not just be used for research pertaining to race and racism, but felt positive action was especially important in the case of this PhD research, which was part of a wider programme of six PhDs funded by our ESRC grant.
Under the Equality Act 2010, “positive action” can be taken where there is evidence of disadvantage or under-representation. Ring-fencing requires under-representation data.
For this we used:
- National postgraduate research funding data (available online)
- Departmental data – with clear separation of “British racially minoritised” from international student demographics
The White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership, the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics and our Heads of Department helped us gather the data.
We secured written approval from the following key people:
- The Head of the Doctoral Training Partnership
- The Head of Department for the studentship
We also sought and secured support from the EDI unit in the University of York.
We did not require sign off from HR as this was not a recruitment process for a member of staff.
Once we secured written approvals, we then proceeded with advertising.
Read an abridged version of the advert that we used to recruit for the studentship:
Ring-fenced PhD studentship advert – abridged version (PDF, 89KB)
Our first two advertising rounds using the standard University pathways were unsuccessful. We didn’t manage to reach applicants who met our criteria for shortlisting, and we had small numbers applying.
Standard departmental mailing lists and university webpages largely reproduce existing networks. When we undertook some proactive work to networks specifically for people of colour, we then drew in an exceptionally strong field of candidates and had a high number of candidates.
Effective strategies we used included:
- Circulating via specialist race equity research networks
- Contacting research groups working on race and decolonisation
- Using social media channels focused on higher education diversity
- Investing time in informal conversations with prospective applicants who were unfamiliar with how PhD recruitment works
One of the PhD supervisors was a race expert and had strong links with anti-racist networks. Links with specialist networks relevant to the studentship are key for reaching candidates. Professional support staff expertise and time was extremely valuable for this proactive approach.
Positive action means addressing structural barriers to access, so we adopted the following key elements in our recruitment:
- An interview panel that included racially minoritised staff
- Transparent criteria, which allowed for recognition of community and professional experience to ‘count’ in shortlisting and interviewing.
- Accessible interview questions which allowed people to show how their previous expertise was transferable into an academic context. We provided the first question to applicants in advance of the interview.
Recruiting racially minoritised scholars into under-representative environments requires planning for support and supervision.
Support considerations included:
- External partnerships e.g. approaching key organisations to be involved in the Thesis Advisory Panel. However, you should consider ensuring there is budget to pay for small NGOs’ involvement in the process.
- Having a PhD supervision team that included racially minoritised scholars, where possible.
- Supervisory awareness of the emotional labour of researching racism as a racially minoritised scholar within an under-representative environment. See YCEDE resources.
- Linking the successful PhD candidate with the YCEDE and sharing information about other BAME networks of support in the institution.
Positive action in postgraduate research recruitment redistributes funded doctoral access in a context where racialised inequalities are persistent and well-documented.
A single ring-fenced award is small in scale, but this can support capacity building and redistribution of resources through creating precedent, demonstrating institutional feasibility and creating a pathway for future awards to be made using this approach.
Reflections
We would highly recommend this recruitment strategy to anyone looking to drive forward high quality, original and distinctive scholarship whilst also opening up the academy.
This recruitment strategy enabled us to recruit an outstanding doctoral researcher whose work exemplifies excellence in both scholarship and practice. Her research, which explores vulnerability, Muslim families, and counter-terrorism through anti-racist theoretical and methodological approaches, demonstrates exceptional intellectual rigour alongside a deep commitment to ethical and community-engaged research. This studentship demonstrates how excellent research can advance knowledge while modelling inclusive, ethical, and socially responsible research practice.
Dr Katy Sian, PhD Supervisor
Thanks to the recruitment process involving organisations that sit outside traditional academic avenues, I was able to apply for this ring-fenced studentship. By sharing in established external professional race and decolonial research networks – of which support and trust is crucial – the opportunity to apply for the studentship became possible. Without this engagement outside traditional academics, I may never have known about opportunities such as this one, or felt confident that my professional and lived experience would have been enough to apply. Now researching in this field, it has highlighted the importance of addressing institutional barriers to research, and highlights how quality candidates exist outside institutions.
PhD candidate
Acknowledgements
We’d like to thank colleagues, partners and external organisations who have supported the Centre to develop our process and therefore provide this guidance more widely.
If your organisation benefits from reading and adopting this resource, we kindly ask that you inform us of its value by emailing [email protected].We’d also be grateful to be referenced in any processes that you establish from using this resource.
Contact us
If you would like to discuss how we did this work, please email [email protected].