PhD Studentship Opportunity: The Davis Scholarship
A Fully Funded PhD on Contextual Safeguarding for Care-Experienced Students within The Department of Sociology, Durham University
We’re thrilled to launch The Davis Scholarship—a fully funded, enhanced PhD studentship (with an optional Masters year) exclusively for candidates with experience of care. This prestigious opportunity provides financial, academic, and peer support to ensure care-experienced scholars can thrive in their research and higher education journey.
About the Scholarship
The Davis Scholarship is designed to empower care-experienced researchers by removing financial barriers and fostering a supportive academic environment. The successful candidate will undertake a full-time PhD (and MA, if required) under the supervision of Prof. Carlene Firmin and senior researchers from the Contextual Safeguarding programme.
The scholarship is named after Jahnine Davis, a leading researcher, National Kinship Care Ambassador, and Founder of Listen-Up - an organisation dedicated to amplifying the voices of Black and racialised children in child protection research, policy, and practice. Jahnine’s work has profoundly shaped the values and goals of the Contextual Safeguarding programme, and highlights the importance of including care-experienced people’s voices in academia, research and policy.
What’s included?
We recognise that care-experienced scholars bring invaluable perspectives to academia, yet systemic barriers often limit their opportunities to fully participate. The Davis Scholarship aims to change this—providing not just financial support, but also mentorship, peer connections, and well-being resources to ensure scholars can fully participate in university life. That’s why this scholarship offers an enhanced funding package, worth over £160,000.
Who’s eligible?
The Davis Scholarship is open to any care-experienced candidate, of any age, who has an undergraduate degree and is interested in shaping the future of social work support for young people. We welcome applicants with a range of care experience, including those who lived with foster carers, in a residential children's home, who were cared for at home under a supervision order, or who lived with friends or relatives in kinship care either formally or informally.
More information on the full offer, eligibility and how to apply is here.
Closing date: Friday 18 April 2025
Interview date: Tuesday 13 May 2025
Start Date: 1 October 2025