What does it take to prepare for your first academic conference as a first-year PhD researcher? After spending 10 days and 10 hours preparing a 15-minute presentation, I reflect on the experience of presenting *Blood Money* at the University of York’s Intersectionality and Social Justice Symposium, what I learnt about academic writing and public speaking, what I would do differently, and the researcher I am becoming along the way.
What if completing a PhD meant more than producing a polished thesis? In this guest contribution, Wilson Chak, a doctoral researcher in Systematic Theology at the University of Edinburgh, reflects on academic writing, the pursuit of knowledge and what it might mean to rethink the very idea of completion. A couple of weeks ago, whilst … Continue reading Feeling Like Tearing Your PhD?
What happens when the excitement of postgraduate study begins to wear off? With humour, creativity and a little cinematic imagination, EK invites us to rediscover the magic in our research journeys, find joy in the everyday and remember why we started.
There is something special about the beginning of a new academic year. Campuses come alive again, inboxes fill with invitations, induction sessions introduce us to people whose names we will inevitably forget and new PhD researchers arrive carrying a mixture of excitement, ambition and, if we are being truthful, a little uncertainty about what they … Continue reading You Made It. Now What? Finding Your Place When the Excitement of Starting a PhD Settles.
Connecting with fellow SGSAH scholars aboard the Waverley, with Arran in the background. One of the things I have genuinely appreciated about being a Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH) funded student is that my PhD experience has taken me beyond my laptop and university walls. As an international student, I have been … Continue reading Sometimes the PhD Needs You to Leave the Desk: My Year Two SGSAH Residential in Millport
Photo: Kristin Hardwick, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0) Say the words "writing retreat" to a PhD researcher and watch their eyes light up around one thing: the word count. A few days away from supervision meetings, teaching admin, and emails arriving in the background. Just you, a laptop, and a target you have been promising yourself … Continue reading What Writing Retreats Actually Teach You
At a time when higher education budgets are tightening and funding opportunities can feel increasingly uncertain, many people are questioning whether pursuing a PhD is still financially possible. For international students especially, the cost of tuition, visas, relocation and everyday living can make doctoral study feel like something reserved for people who already have access … Continue reading The PhD Journey Begins Before Enrollment: The Journey to Finding Your PhD Funding
There is something deeply hopeful about watching someone else reach the end while you are still standing near the beginning. Their graduation does not promise that your own journey will be easy or predictable, but it reminds you that the end is possible. Someone else once stood where you are standing now, unsure of how they would make it through, and somehow, they kept going.
There is something oddly comforting about finding yourself in a room full of other postgraduate students and realising that the academic world is much larger than your own desk, your own department, and your own very dramatic reading list.
From Advocacy to Mobilisation to Organising What mechanisms are there for doctoral students to advocate, challenge, collectivise, and take agency both within and beyond the structures of higher education? How might we better take agency, use our advocacy, and form networks of solidarity and support? On 12 May 2026, we gathered at the University of … Continue reading Building Community Through the SGSAH Doctoral Researcher Committee
