CDA Opportunities


CHASE Collaborative Doctoral Awards 2024-25

Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDAs) are doctoral studentship projects which are developed by a university based academic working in collaboration with an organisation outside of higher education. They are intended as a way of facilitating collaboration with a diverse range of partners including smaller, regional partners.

CDAs are mutually beneficial; they provide important opportunities for doctoral researchers to gain first-hand experience of work outside a university environment and enhance employment-related skills. CDA projects also encourage and establish links that have long-term benefits for both collaborating partners, such as access to resources and materials, knowledge and expertise that may not otherwise be available and providing social, cultural and economic benefits to wider society.

How to apply

CDA applications are made directly to the host institution, not through the CHASE application system. You can apply for individual projects using the link in the project advertisement on the CHASE website.

Details on all CHASE Studentship funding opportunities are here.


Current CDA opportunities available

Coastal Heritage and Socio-Economic Decline on the Isle of Sheppey: Learning from the lost village of Elmley in Kent

Applications are invited for a CDA with the University of Kent and Hillcrest Conservation Consultants, Kent. Working with leading professionals in heritage conservation, you will explore coastal heritage, and how industrial shifts, climate change, and economic factors contribute to the erosion of cultural landmarks and community identities.


SONIC MEDIALITIES, ANCESTRAL SOCIALITIES: accessing anti-colonial resistance through sound archives, orality, music, performance and listening practices

The Art Research Programme and the Centre for Postcolonial Studies at Goldsmiths, and the Abotcha - Mediateca Onshore in Malafo, Guinea Bissau, invite applications for a fully-funded doctoral studentship on ‘Sonic Medialities / Ancestral Socialities: accessing anti-colonial resistance through sound archives, orality, music, performance and listening practices’.


Recovering the Submerged Graphosphere of Westminster Abbey

This project will allow one student to gain from an exciting partnership between Westminster Abbey’s Archives and the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) at the University of Kent.


Drawing for Humans and Machines

The Art and Computing Departments at Goldsmiths and Drawing Room public gallery invite applications for a funded doctoral scholarship to research drawing as a way of exploring new partnerships between humans and machines (computing, AI, robotics) at a time of technological change.


Creating a Feminist Archival Praxis to Reveal Histories of Women in the UK Advertising Industry

Through the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-east England (CHASE), we are offering a fully funded PhD studentship with the University of East Anglia and the History of Advertising Trust.


Re-storying the Sussex Weald Garden: Exotics, Empire and Ecobiography.

Applications are invited for a funded collaborative PhD between the University of Sussex and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), investigating the plants and people of three estates in the Sussex High Weald.


Domesticating ‘Invalid Furniture’, c. 1850-1914

We are inviting applications for a CHASE collaborative doctoral award, to be jointly supervised by Dr Claire L. Jones, School of Classics, English and History at the University of Kent, and Dr Megan Wheeler, Assistant National Curator (Furniture) at the National Trust, for 3 years starting on 1 October 2025.