The Department of Law offers a limited number of Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAs) to PhD students at Queen Mary each year. The award covers tuition fees and a maintenance grant set at Research council rates. In 2021 this amounted to around £19,000 per year.
See also:
GTAs are awarded annually on the basis of the academic excellence of the candidates. GTAs are allocated on the basis of the teaching needs in the Department of Law and the areas of expertise of the PhD students receiving the award.
To apply for a Graduate Teaching Assistantship you must:
As the GTA is a Department of Law award, your research proposals must relate to the Department of Law's areas of teaching and research The Department of Law can offer supervision in most areas of non-commercial law. Please see our staff list to view areas of staff expertise. Click on the DoL/CCLS button on the top of the table to list only the Department of Law staff.
The Department of Law also co-ordinates and conducts research in the legal field via a number of Research Centres:
Within the area of Justice and Human Rights:
Within the area of Society, Democracy and the Humanities
Within the area of International, European and Comparative Law
Within the area of the Governance of Business and Finance
The Department would therefore also welcome applications where the proposed research relates to the work and focus of one of these Research Centres.
Students on GTAs teach up to four hours per week on the undergraduate LLB degree course (with all the appropriate administration that accompanies this - such as providing office hours and marking student essays). GTAs are also involved with examining duties in the Department.
The deadline for applying for the GTA award for 2023-24 is Wednesday 7 December 2022. You must have completed the main PhD application process, including the submission of all required supporting documentation, by this date.
Only applicants who have completed the online application process to the PhD programme prior to the funding submission deadline will be considered for funding. The selection process will then take place during the next couple of months and be completed in February 2023.
For information on how to make an application, what our entry requirements are, and what supporting documentation is required, please see our PhD webpage.
To make an on-line application, you would need to visit this web-page and then click on one of the two buttons in the right-hand column of the web-page (for either ‘full-time’ or ‘part-time’ study, depending upon which study mode you wish to apply for).
Applicants should note the School of Law, unlike other PhD programmes at Queen Mary, has no formal requirement for applicants to contact an academic staff member to arrange for supervision to be agreed prior to submission of their full application. All applications, in the first instance, are reviewed by our Research Admissions Director. The Director has an overview of the supervisory capabilities and availabilities of all academic staff within the School, so applications are always reviewed, if they are considered strong enough by the Director, by academics with research expertise relevant to an applicant’s proposed area of study.
However, Queen Mary’s online application system requires applicants to confirm the name of a proposed supervisor (in the ‘Research Proposal’ section). As Law has no requirement here, applicants can simply name their proposed supervisor as a ‘School of Law supervisor’, without having to name a specific member of staff (although they are free to do so if they wish).
When you complete your online PhD application you must tell us that you wish to apply for GTA funding by answering the questions in the ‘Other Information’ section. In response to the question: ‘Are you applying for a specific named funding’ by selecting yes from the drop down menu, and then to the new question that appears ‘Which specific named funding?’ choose the ‘I am a School of Law – GTA applicant’ option from the drop-down list provided. Without this notification, you will not be considered as a funding applicant. You will be treated as an applicant to our PhD programme only.
If you want to apply for GTA funding and have already submitted your main application (without indicating that you wish to be considered for one of our funding awards) you must contact Mr Gareth Skehan, PhD Admissions Administrator, before the deadline by email on g.skehan@qmul.ac.uk, and state the award that you want to apply for. Without this specific email notification you will not be considered for GTA funding.
If you wish to apply for either the Studentship award or one of the Doctoral Training Programme funding awards simultaneously, you may do so via the on-line application system. However, if you are unable to indicate this on the online application form, please e-mail g.skehan@qmul.ac.uk with notification by the time of the relevant funding deadline.
If you have any queries relating to the funding application process, please e-mail the School of Law PhD Admissions Administrator, Mr G Skehan by email on g.skehan@qmul.ac.uk.