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Manchester-Melbourne Dual Award

Manchester-Melbourne Dual Award PhD project call 2025/26

Established in 2019, The Manchester-Melbourne Dual Award (The Cookson Scholars) is going from strength to strength and will be recruiting for its sixth cohort in 2025/2026.  

The University of Melbourne and the University of Manchester are calling for project proposals to establish pairs of jointly awarded/dual PhD research projects in the Faculties of Humanities and Science & Engineering.  

Each successful team of collaborating Principal Investigators (PIs) will receive funding for two jointly awarded/dual PhD candidates, one based in Manchester and one based in Melbourne.  

The details of the call are below: 

  • Faculty of Science & Engineering: Open call 
  • Faculty of Humanities: encourages applications in Creativity, Digital Futures, Inequalities, Post-COVID Society, and Sustainability. 

 Applications are strongly encouraged from research groups that involve Early Career Researchers (ECRs) as either Principal Investigators or Co-investigators.  

Submissions are by a single, jointly prepared application via the University of Melbourne’s SmartyGrants Portal. The Deadline is Friday 11th October 2024

The project call contains further detail regarding the Manchester-Melbourne Dual Award and information to support a project proposal.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Amanda.Aspinall@manchester.ac.uk

PGR Candidate Recruitment Process

Project advertisement

The project will be advertised on the University Golden Partnerships website under Dual award with the University of Manchester as well as the FindAPhD site and the Faculty website.

Application review

  1. Applications that meet the eligibility criteria and where all the required documents have been received will be circulated to the proposed supervisory team (including the Melbourne supervisors) via the interim admissions process
  2. Following the advertised programme application deadline, the admissions administrator will review and circulate all remaining applications that meet the eligibility criteria. A candidate list will be sent once all applications are circulated. 
  3. The Manchester supervisory team will need to review the applications with their Melbourne supervisor(s) to shortlist the candidates that they wish to invite for an interview.  Please consult the recruitment guidance document.
  4. The main supervisor must inform the Doctoral Academy recruitment administrator of the shortlisted candidates.  
  5. The recruitment administrator will liaise with colleagues in Melbourne to ensure the eligibility criteria are met before candidates are invited for an interview. Candidates need to meet the entry criteria (including the English Language if applicable) of both institutions (Melbourne’s entry criteria are usually higher). This is also to ensure that candidates are not rejected by Melbourne at a later stage.

Interview Process

  • Provided the shortlist of candidates is approved at this stage, the main supervisor should organise the formal interviews.  
  • The interview panel must include as a minimum the Manchester PI and Melbourne PI and one independent member which would usually be the Departmental Reviewer for the Department. 
  • The main supervisor will need to confirm with the Recruitment administrator when the interviews will be scheduled. Please be aware that candidates should receive a minimum of 5 days notice (7 days if required to complete an activity, such as a presentation). The recruitment administrator is also required to communicate a timeframe to Melbourne.  
  • Interviews should include one question or discussion about studying abroad. Suggested questions include: 
    • Do you have experience of working/studying abroad and what do you think the challenges to this are? 
    • How would you approach the transition to studying in another country? 
  • HUMS Interview Form to be completed by the main supervisor for the successful candidate to be offered the position after the interview.  
  • The interview panel may wish to review the interview questions and include specific questions about undertaking a PhD across two institutions.  The interview questions in the form are suggested questions and additional questions can be included where appropriate. 
  • It has been suggested that the panel should consider having a couple of reserve candidates in case the successful candidate accepts an offer elsewhere. 

Informal Offer

  • Once the decision regarding the position has been finalised, the recruitment administrator will communicate the outcome informally via email to the successful candidate using the template provided by Manchester Doctoral College.  The supervisory team will be included in this communication.
  • Following this, the recruitment administrator will notify Melbourne of the decision and request that the successful candidate apply to Melbourne. A formal offer letter from Manchester will be issued only after Melbourne has approved the admissions and issued a formal offer letter to the candidate.
  • The recruitment administrator will also ensure that all applicants receive timely updates regarding their application status, including those who were not selected.  The reserve candidate(s) will be informed of their unsuccessful application status only after the successful candidate has accepted, applied, and been formally offered by Melbourne.

Formal Offer

  • The formal offer should be issued by the end of May.
  • The main supervisor will need to complete the HUMS Offer Proforma for the successful candidate.
  • A formal offer letter and funding confirmation letter will be sent to the successful candidate.

Melbourne based candidate

As part of the dual-award scheme, the Melbourne supervisory team will also be recruiting a candidate. Please provide the details of the successful candidate based in the University of Melbourne to the Doctoral Academy Admissions Team to initiate the formal Manchester offer.

The candidate is expected to join and register for the PhD in line with their Melbourne programme start date.