Ruth's story: How one woman fought to fund her PhD

If you want to do postgraduate study in science or technology, you'll be welcomed with open arms by universities overflowing with research funding. You might get a full scholarship plus bursary, meaning you pocket £12,000 tax-free, or you might get a permanent role as a research assistant, meaning you're on the academic salary scale and can expect significantly more. Either way, you probably won't be strapped for cash.

If your subject of interest falls within the arts or social sciences, however, you might have a struggle on your hands, because there are far fewer funding opportunities available. And it's even more complicated when the universities themselves have no idea how to advise you to stay afloat financially.

Ruth Deller, 28, might seem like one of the lucky ones now. She is in her second year of research at Sheffield Hallam University, living on a bursary from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), supplemented with limited part-time lecturing. But last year was very different. Then she found she was having to fund herself through her studies because she says she received inaccurate advice from tutors about which research council should be approached for funding.

"I had noticed that there seemed to be a lot of programmes about religion and spirituality in recent years and this interested me," she explains. "I began reading, and discovered there was a significant gap for research on mainstream television representations of religion."

This topic, however, created a problem when it came to deciding which funding body to apply to. It was a choice between the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). "Media studies is one of the subjects that falls on the boundary between the two councils and it isn't very clear which one is the best to apply to," says Deller. "Their website has a statement that says something along the lines of, if it's text-based research it should be AHRC and if it's more social or audience-based research, it's the ESRC. My research contains both elements."

Deller sought guidance from her tutors, and decided to apply to the AHRC as the university has a good track record with them. Moreover they had more studentships available than the ESRC. She worked on her proposal with her supervisory team, and was ready to submit the application when she found out that a decision had been taken by the university that her proposal was not to be sent to the AHRC at all.

The graduate office had discovered that the AHRC considered Deller's topic to come under the ESRC's remit. This meant that she had one day to complete a whole new form, with a different word count and different requirements.

Deller was disappointed to find that she was turned down for funding. But she began the PhD anyway as a part-time student, and reapplied for funding in her second year, taking steps to avoid any similar last-minute disasters.

"Very early on, I emailed the AHRC and ESRC with the proposal we'd put on the original AHRC form – the one that the AHRC said should have been an ESRC proposal. And they both said it was AHRC territory," she says. "There then followed a lot of people from Sheffield Hallam conversing with the AHRC to make sure they would accept my funding proposal this time round."

They did, thankfully. But Deller is only too aware that funding could have been her's last year had she been advised correctly.

These kinds of difficulties are becoming more apparent because postgraduate study has grown enormously in the past decade. It is now a massive business, but funding has not kept pace. "Universities must know that people struggle to fund study; there's a demand for them to provide courses, which aren't being funded externally," says Chris Rea from Graduate Prospects, the UK's official careers website for graduates. "It's very hard to get formal funding. The vast majority of students won't get it, and it's much harder for arts and social sciences than in science."

External funding for arts and social sciences students comes primarily from the two research councils Deller encountered – the ARHC and the ESRC. Competition for the limited pot of money is tough, and the selection process is rigorous.

"In the open competition [where students are given grants directly from the research council rather than via their university department], students apply directly to us for a set number of awards," says Julie McLaren, head of postgraduate training at the ESRC. "In the latest round of this competition out of more than 400 applications, just over 100 were of A+ standard, and the top 85 were selected for funding."

With even exceptional candidates missing out, it is obvious that most applicants will be disappointed if they are relying on research council funding to pay their way through further study. It's not all doom and gloom, however. Applicants can try again for funding, as Deller did, and there other sources they can approach. The ESRC, for example, offers guidance to those whose applications are rejected. "If applicants are not successful, they can ask for feedback," says McLaren.

The AHRC, on the other hand, receives more than 5,000 applications for funding each year, approving about one-fifth of those. It might sound like a lot, but that equates to only about 10 per cent of all arts and humanities postgraduate students in the UK.

If students fail to secure any kind of monetary support, they are likely to struggle. They end up having to fund themselves from a mixture of different sources – work, savings, career development loans, overdrafts, small bursaries, teaching, and money from parents. It is no coincidence that 60 per cent of postgraduate students are part-time now, which means they are combining their studies with paid employment. Twenty years ago this would not have been the case.

Tom Gibbons, a part-time PhD student and full-time lecturer in sport studies at the University of Teesside, is an example of this trend. His first job in higher education was as a research assistant on a project that he really wasn't that interested in. "But I decided to go for the job as a way to get into academia after being knocked back a number of times for full-time PhD studentships," he explains.

When his fixed-term contract ran out, he moved to Lancaster to take up a job as a research and teaching assistant. As long as he did the teaching that was required of him, he was able to spend the rest of the time developing his own research ideas, he says.

It was at Lancaster that he was able to register for a part-time PhD. Later, a full-time permanent lecturing position came up at Teesside so he applied for that, got it, and transferred his PhD registration from Lancaster.

All of which shows just how tough it is to make your way in academe today. Both Deller and Gibbons were tenacious. They didn't give up. The message is, if you want to pursue the postgraduate path in the arts and social sciences, you must stick with it, think laterally and be prepared to make sideways moves to reach your eventual goal.

Tips for funding your PhD

* Be sure you're not missing out. If there's funding available, apply for it, even if it's competitive. If everyone thought that they had no chance of getting the cash, nobody would get any money at all.

* Explore all possible avenues at your institution. There may be a research assistantship you can apply for, which will give you money and a fee-waiver in return for taking on academic responsibilities.

* Look into scholarships and bursaries from charities and trusts; often they're specific to a particular area of study, so you won't necessarily be competing against hundreds of others.

* Do not treat the advice you receive from other academics or your institution as infallible. Do your own research and telephoning to be absolutely sure that you are making applications to the correct places.