Knowledge Orders before Modernity - a Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme

For UK Doctoral Scholarships Home (UK) tuition fees, an annual maintenance allowance at UKRI base levels, and up to £10,000 to support research and training needs, to be claimed as expenses.

For International Doctoral Scholarships Tuition fees and an annual maintenance allowance (both at UKRI base levels), and up to £10,000 to support research and training needs, to be claimed as expenses.

The Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships Programme `Knowledge Orders before Modernity’ (KOM) is an innovative collaboration between King’s College London and the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) at the University of Kent. The programme explores the capacity of the handwritten word comparatively, after as well as before the advent of the printing press, outside and well as within western cultures. It seeks to challenge a conventional periodization which associates complex knowledge, complex archival mechanisms, and mundane recording with the arrival of print.

The programme is entering is final year of recruitment, and expects to appoint up to five scholars. All successful candidates will participate in a shared programme of visits, events, and discussions. Doctoral scholars will be registered at the University of their first supervisor, either at King’s College London or the University of Kent.

The studentship offers up to 3.5 years (42 months) of funding, dependent on satisfactory progress, and will cover full tuition fees and an annual maintenance grant at UKRI rates.

For informal enquiries, please contact the programme directors, Professor Julia Crick (King’s College London) or Dr David Rundle (University of Kent). For information about a specific advertised project, please contact the named first supervisor.

To be considered for the scholarships Knowledge Orders can provide, you must have sent us your expression of interest by 12pm, 13 February 2026. Remember that to do this, you will need to have submitted your application to the university.

Candidates short-listed for funding will be interviewed by the Knowledge Orders team in late March 2026.

Your expression of interest to us will be judged on the basis of intellectual quality, feasibility and synergy with the consortium’s aims.

We welcome a field of applicants from a diversity in backgrounds and experience and we undertake to build relevant skills training into the student’s individual work-plan.

Applicants should have at a minimum a good first degree (at least 2.1, or international equivalent) in History, Literatures, Classics, Theology, Art History, or a closely related subject, and have obtained, or are currently working towards a Master's degree at Merit level, or international equivalent, in these or a related discipline.

If English is not your first language you will need to meet the English language requirements and provide proof of proficiency. Click here for more information.

• Applicants would be expected to start their studies in September 2026.
• Recipients are expected to commit to engagement beyond their doctoral studies through the vitality of the Knowledge Orders programme.

This award is open to applicants whose fee status is classed as Home (UK) and International. Click here for further information about fee status.

Please note that these studentships are only open to applicants who will start their study in September 2026, not those who have already started.

The programme has four themes:

A Technologies of knowledge (materiality, writing systems, layout, accounts, numerals, diagrams, ciphers).

B Embodied knowledge (scribal careers, training, personal mobility, professionalization, language, gatekeepers).

C Systems of knowledge (archiving processes, witness, memory, reading practices, recall, authenticity, compilation).

D Chronologies of knowledge (innovation, continuity, engagement with the past, responses to the present, reuse, forgery).

Applications are invited for KOM advertised projects or via an open call Projects - Knowledge Orders before Modernity (komldsp.org.uk). Applicants applying via the open call must demonstrate how their project aligns with one or more of KOM’s four themes.

King’s and MEMS at the University of Kent are leading centres for the study of pre-modern documentary and manuscript cultures, and include world-leading expertise in digital humanities, at King’s Digital Laboratory (KDL) and the Department of Digital Humanities.

Involvement in the Knowledge Orders programme brings:

1. a personal training fund of £10,000;
2. membership of a group of peers and academics addressing common themes and approaches;
3. participation in a programme of bespoke internal and external training, including with archives and libraries and with King’s Digital Laboratory (KDL);
4. access to training opportunities available within the consortium; and
5. the possibility of a short placement in a repository, circumstances allowing.

KOM welcomes a field of applicants from a diversity of backgrounds and we undertake to build relevant skills training into the student’s individual work-plan.

In addition to the Doctoral Scholarships, during the lifetime of the award, the Leverhulme Trust will fund up to three Master’s Plus Doctoral scholars, available to applicants from under-represented groups. For more information, see Master's Plus - Knowledge Orders before Modernity (komldsp.org.uk).