Koestler Psychologies PhD Scholarship

Background

The Koestler Psychologies PhD Studentship is funded through the Koestler endowment to the University of Edinburgh.

The Studentship supports rigorous psychological research into underexplored, exceptional, or not-yet-fully-understood aspects of human cognition, experience, communication, and behaviour. It is especially concerned with areas of psychology that may help illuminate experiences, capacities, or beliefs that have historically been described as anomalous, exceptional, psychical, or paranormal, or that bear on how such experiences are generated, interpreted, communicated, or evaluated.

The Studentship is intended to support empirical, theoretical, or methodological work in psychology and related fields. Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Mental imagery, perception, attention, memory, and intuition
• Implicit or non-verbal communication, paralinguistic, or interpersonal processes
• Altered states of consciousness, dreams, absorption, dissociation, suggestion, and expectation
• Creativity, belief formation, and reasoning under uncertainty
• Anomalous or unusual experiences, and the social and cultural interpretation of such experiences

Projects need not seek to demonstrate, endorse, or directly investigate paranormal phenomena; rather, they should contribute to a more rigorous understanding of psychological processes that may be relevant to experiences or claims of this kind. A suitable project will normally address a question in psychology that is underdeveloped, methodologically challenging, or concerned with aspects of experience or behaviour whose mechanisms are not yet well understood.

Award

The successful applicant will receive a scholarship to cover full tuition fees, as well as a stipend at the UKRI minimum stipend rate, for up to 3 years subject to satisfactory progress.

Eligibility

The award is open to UK and overseas students applying to start their first year of study for an on-campus PhD in Psychology in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. 

Applicants for the 2027/28 must submit an admissions application for the PhD in Psychology by the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Science's first PhD application deadline: Monday 9 November 2026.

This award cannot be held concurrently with fully-funded scholarships but can be held with partially-funded scholarships and will be reduced pro-rata.

Applicants who have already obtained a PhD, or formal equivalent, as a result of direct research training will not be considered for this award.

Criteria

Applicants must be of outstanding academic merit and research potential. Candidates must have, or expect to obtain, a UK 2:1 honours degree or higher at undergraduate level or the international equivalent in Psychology or a related field. Your application will also be considered if you have a UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in another subject and a postgraduate master's level degree in Psychology or a related field.

Eligible applications will be assessed on how effectively the proposed research aligns with the aims of the Koestler Psychologies Studentship. The applicant should indicate why the work could, directly or indirectly, help advance understanding of the kinds of human experiences, capacities, judgements, or interpretations that fall within the wider Koestler tradition. Applicants are not required to argue for the existence of paranormal phenomena, nor to frame their project as parapsychology. The key requirement is that the project has a credible connection to the broader scientific investigation of unusual, contested, or poorly understood aspects of human psychology.

Applying

Applicants must submit an admissions application for the PhD programme before Monday 9 November 2026. Applicants must also submit a dedicated scholarship statement of no more than 500 words explaining how their proposed research aligns with the goals of the Koestler Psychologies Scholarship.

The statement should address:

1. The central psychological question or phenomenon to be studied.
2. Why this area is underexplored, theoretically important, methodologically challenging, or concerned with aspects of human experience that are not yet well understood.
3. How the project could contribute, directly or indirectly, to understanding experiences, capacities, beliefs, or interpretations that have historically been regarded as anomalous, exceptional, psychical, or paranormal.

The statement must be sent be email to the PPLS Postgraduate Research Administration Team at pplspgoffice@ed.ac.uk.

Selection procedure

A scholarship committee within the Psychology department will rank eligible applications primarily in terms of academic merit, research potential, and the fit and strength of the scholarship statement. The highest ranked applicant will be offered the scholarship. The committee aims to inform the successful applicant by 31 January 2027.

Should the initial applicant decline, the award will cascade to the next highest ranked applicant. 

Contact

Please contact the PPLS Postgraduate Research Administration Team at pplspgoffice@ed.ac.uk with any questions related to this scholarship opportunity.