Let’s get the headlines out of the way first.
UKRI is increasing its PhD stipend by eight per cent to £20,780 from 1 October 2025. Wonkhe understands that this will not be funded by a reduction in the overall number of grants but instead forms part of UKRI’s funding settlement for 2025–26.
Pay
This means that UKRI will provide a take home income that is equivalent to the take home National Living Wage. This is not the same as the Real Living Wage but it is nonetheless a significant and welcome increase.
This is the single largest real terms increase of the stipend for funded students since 2003. Given that UKRI supports 20 per cent of doctoral students, and many universities choose to mirror the terms of UKRI, this will undoubtedly have a significant impact on improving the conditions of PGR students.
There is a sort of unwritten expectation that providers will generally peg their own grants to the levels of UKRI’s. Albeit, as we learn from the accompanying financial analysis that goes with the main report about around one in five students receive an amount above the minimum stipend. However, while half of respondents to a survey on the UKRI stipend indicated that at least 90 per cent of their non-UKRI funded doctoral students received a stipend equivalent to that of UKRI’s minimum level, around one in ten indicated that all of their non-UKRI funded doctoral students receive a stipend lower than UKRI’s minimum.
The potential implications of this are that some providers will further stretch their already stretched resources in maintaining UKRI’s funding levels, or that some providers will fall behind the UKRI minimum rate for students they fund directly. Prior to today’s announcement providers were generally positive about mooted increases. However, while 72 per cent of respondents say they would increase their own stipends to match the National Living Wage this is lower than the 89 per cent who said they would be very or somewhat likely to increase their own stipends by inflation (and a little higher than the 66 per cent said who said they would be very or somewhat likely to increase their stipend if it was anchored to the Real Living Wage).
Providers, for their part, stated in interviews that
Institutions would endorse in principle an increase in line with price inflation (at a minimum) or National Living Wage (which institutions feel, morally, would be preferable) and thought they would be able to match this for university funded stipends. However, for UKRI training grants, were such a raise not accompanied by additional grant funding from UKRI, ROs might need to reduce student numbers in the future to ensure they can continue paying the minimum stipend.
Providers may see some good news in the increase in the minimum fee for a UKRI student increasing by 4.6 per cent to £5,006.This should mean that providers can recoup a slightly greater amount of funding for their students and like with grants many providers will align their home PGR fees to the UKRI minimum. This is an entirely different question as to whether providers are anywhere close to recouping the actual cost of teaching PGR students.
Terms
The funding increase will grab the headlines but the revisions to UKRI’s Standard Terms and Conditions of Training Grant (TGCs) are likely to be as impactful.
In February 2023 UKRI commissioned Advance HE to carry out a review of its TGCs from an EDI perspective which has been considered alongside UKRI’s own new deal for postgraduate research. There is also a new companion document to the update to the TGCs by the UKRI commissioned Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Caucus (EDICa). In their report EDICa highlighted the impacts of child support on the continuation of studies, the wide variability in disabled students getting the support they need, the inflexibility in moving between full and part-time study, and the considerable time it takes in getting medical evidence for securing adjustments. As the authors state
However, for many current doctoral training students, the system of support in its current form is entrenching wider inequalities, particularly relating to caring responsibilities, disability and the benefits that may be achieved through change of mode of study.
This seems to be a message that UKRI has taken seriously.
The first thing to point out is that UKRI is not a regulator and it is at pains to point this out
UKRI is not a regulator and while we for the first time are explicit that we expect compliance with consumer law, employment law, Office for Students and Medr regulation (all where applicable), providers remain responsible for their own compliance and regulators for enforcement.
It feels self evident but the revised terms make it explicit that the role of UKRI is to steer the organisations it funds, and by extension the sector, toward better conditions for PGR students. UKRI will impose conditions on its own grants but it has a wider set of expectations for the sector on improving the conditions for PGRs.
The reason it is steering not shoving the sector are numerous. Primarily, it has limited powers within HERA but it also acknowledges that it is providers that are best placed to make decisions on their own students. The revision to the terms is the moment where some of the ambitions of the Tickell review have come to life in loosening the conditions and reducing the bureaucracy on student grant funding.
This new flexibility comes in a number of forms. UKRI has extended the time a student can draw their stipend while on sick leave from 13 to 28 weeks. UKRI is also removing the requirement for students to provide medical evidence when taking medical leave, instead this process will be more closely managed by a students’ provider. This is because obtaining a diagnosis was a barrier to students taking the leave they needed.
It is in their approach to supporting disabled students where the dynamic of UKRi improving its own conditions while encouraging universities to do likewise comes to light. They note
We will require that disabled students are offered reasonable adjustments at the earliest opportunity and that the research organisation or provider has a policy to support this. For our part, we will update UKRI’s Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) Framework in April 2025.
Again, the expectation is that providers will not just act reasonably but they will only ask students for evidence of a disability where it is necessary to do so. This is a reflection of EHRC guidance, recommendations of the OfS Disabled Students’ Commission and the Bristol v Abrahart judgement.
Finally, UKRI is removing restrictions on students moving between full or part-time modes of study. Their view is that providers are better placed to advise on student modes of study, and they may offer additional funding if they wish.
There are other important measures within here which deserve consideration. Grant funding will include an individual risk assessment when a student is pregnant, breastfeeding or has given birth in the last six months. There is not strong evidence that PGR students are disadvantaged when joining a trade union. And there are still a whole range of challenges in getting support for international students due to the interplay between visa regulations and PGR study.
In total this feels like the kind of policy change that the sector has been calling for. It is not the kind of public argument, back and forth debate, that has been seen on other culture measures like updating the REF. Instead, it is a considered series of changes to the actual conditions of PGR students that will put more money in their pockets while allowing greater flexibility around: leave, illness, support for disabled students, and mode of study. It is not perfect and the wider pressures PGR students will feel are still acute, but it is a big step forward.
UKRI has taken an approach which the sector may recognise as reasonable. They have updated their own conditions based on the evidence presented to them, explained where they have chosen not to, and given greater flexibility to providers to do the things they believe are important.
