School of the Arts: Celebrating and Supporting Doctoral Studies
At a time when postgraduate research funding is in increasingly short supply, the School of Arts is proud to be able to continue to offer PGRs support through the Liverpool School of the Arts Doctoral Awards (LADA). Applications have now closed for 2024-25, and over 40 applicants are being considered for the LADA extensive packages of financial support and training for talented people embarking on doctoral research. LADA is designed to provide excellent UK and International PhD students with financial assistance for fees and maintenance, but also to help them develop valuable research and professional skills, including in publication, in teaching, and impact activity.
One of the 2023-24 successful award-holders is Nathan Bramald (English). He has spent his first year developing research on the use of dinosaurs in literary and scientific writing, and teaching undergraduate students. Nathan tells us: “LADA funding has given me the personal freedom to entirely dedicate myself to my research project and give it the attention and focus that it needs to reach its full impact potential.” In Music, our LADA award-holder Lola de la Mata is focusing on the under-researched intersection of music with tinnitus and other “ear tones”, which will be harnessed as the foundation for writing new compositions, devising live performances, sound installations, and curatorial projects. Lola switched from a freelance career to PhD study, and also credits LADA with allowing her to focus on this research, as well as giving her time to “build networks across departments and other Universities, and engage in uninterrupted periods of creation, experimentation and research.” Another LADA-award holder, Stella Sideli (Philosophy and Communications & Media), also switched from a freelance career outside academia. Stella’s research looks at Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in curatorial practice, drawing on her extensive curatorial experience. As part of her award, Stella is delivering teaching for PGT students and organising research events with external partners. Stephanie Thomson, a LADA award-holder in the Department of Media and Communications, researches the marketing techniques used by femtech fertility startups, exploring whether they give women a false sense of reproductive control and reinforce the motherhood imperative. Stephanie knows first-hand how much of a difference this kind of support can make, especially for carers or parents. “Receiving the LADA scholarship has been life-changing in that it has allowed me to stop working and fully focus on my studies, and without this type of scheme, I think it would be difficult for people like me to pursue PhD-level studies.”
Dr Ross McGarry, HSS Faculty Director of Postgraduate Research, said: “The Liverpool School of the Arts Doctoral Awards is one of the most creative initiatives I have seen”, and that it “provides an innovative template for other Schools across the University to look towards for inspiration when developing UoL PGRs as the academics of the future.” And we in the School of Arts look forward in our turn to being further inspired by the next LADA-award holders, whom we will be welcoming in October!
Stella Sideli
Stephanie Thomson
Nathan Bramald
Lola de la Mata