Overview
The Department of History at the University of Liverpool is pleased to invite applications for one fully-funded (fees and maintenance) PhD studentship to start on 1 October 2026, to focus on the History of the University of Liverpool (broadly conceived). The Studentship is named after Ramsay Muir (1872-1941), who studied History at the then University College Liverpool and served the new University of Liverpool as Professor of History between 1906 and 1913, before resigning to work in higher education in colonial India.
About this opportunity
The Studentship has been created to coincide with a major new book project celebrating 150 years of history at the University of Liverpool. The Original Redbrick: 150 Years of the University of Liverpool (to be published in the University’s anniversary year, 2031) takes an innovative approach to the history of higher education by telling the entangled story of Liverpool as a city and of the University of Liverpool as an institution as the two evolved together over time. Involving an interdisciplinary team of authors drawn from across the University’s three Faculties, the book will explore the campus as an urban space, a site of student life and activism, medical and scientific innovation, and cultural change, highlighting themes of politics, identity, environment and resilience across 150 transformative years.
The Studentship itself will run alongside the book project, producing original new research on a topic selected and developed by the successful candidate, who might choose to treat Liverpool as one of several case studies, or else focus entirely on the University of Liverpool itself.
Potential approaches to the topic may include, but are not limited to:
- The Global University: What was the role of British universities – and the University of Liverpool in particular – in projecting soft power as Britain declined as an international power and lost its empire? How was the University and its people involved in transmitting ideas about academic culture to former colonial universities? When did the University start to think of itself as an international community? When, how, and from where did the University attract international students and staff, and to what extent did they reshape the city’s social and cultural life, including existing ethnic minority communities?
- The University and its Subject Areas: From Archaeology, Architecture and Archives & Records Management, to Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Computing, Urban Planning, Medicine and Catalan Studies, the University has pioneered provision in many disciplinary areas. What was the early development and cultural impact of some of these subject areas? How has the University’s research driven societal, medical or technological change? What was taught, how was it taught, and how far has the University’s teaching adapted to the changing demographics of higher education?
- The University as an Employer: To what extent are the histories of universities and trade unionism intertwined? When did academics and professional staff begin to unionize, and to what extent did they adopt the same formula used by blue-collar trade unions? Was there resistance to the idea of seeing academics as people who needed to unionize? What sorts of staff were most involved in trade unions in different periods, and which disciplines were most strongly drawn to labour activism?
- Students and their Identities: Student life has changed radically since the foundation of the University of Liverpool, with a dramatic expansion in the number and diversity of students set alongside two world wars, deindustrialisation and significant social and cultural change across university towns, not least in the Liverpool City Region. How did student newspapers portray student life? What sorts of things and what sorts of students did they leave out? Which did they promote, and how were power, politics, and difference reflected in student publications? What do oral histories with alumni and long-serving staff have to tell us about the changing nature of student life? To what extent did shifts in policy, participation, and institutional culture influence (or fail to influence) inclusive practices? What challenges have there been to the development of a diverse academic community? How can intersectional approaches to identity and belonging inform our understanding of histories of education and social mobility?
In addition to completing a doctoral dissertation, the successful candidate will also join the wider team developing The Original Redbrick book project, benefiting from hands-on practical experience and employability opportunities working alongside the academic editors, the project’s steering group and the publishing team at Liverpool University Press (LUP), who will act as Collaborative Doctoral Partner for the Studentship. The precise nature of these opportunities will be agreed between the successful candidate, their academic supervisors and the editorial team at LUP once the project has started, to be reviewed twice-annually.