Macqueen Scholarship

Applications for the 2025/26 academic year closed at 23:59 (GMT) on Wednesday 19th March 2025. Late applications cannot be accepted.

Ensure you visit the Important Information and Recommendations section before you apply. We consider this section to be essential reading.

Shine a light on the experiences of sole carers with this scholarship, which supports postgraduate social work research on one-parent families. The scholarship is funded by a generous donation from The Julie-Ann Macqueen Trust.

Applicants must submit two separate applications by the deadline:

Application for admission to the PhD in Social Work degree in the School of Social and Political Science (must be submitted at least 5 working days before the scholarship deadline)
Macqueen PhD Scholarship application

Updated or additional documents or information for your PhD programme application cannot be accepted after your application has been sent for academic assessment. Before then, any updated or additional documents must be uploaded directly to your PhD application via your MyEd account.

Updated or additional documents or information for your scholarship application cannot be accepted after you have submitted your scholarship application.

Late applications cannot be accepted.

The University reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to amend or withdraw any of the advertised scholarships, without notice.

Macqueen Scholarship application process

Ensure you visit the Important Information and Recommendations section before you apply. We consider this section to be essential reading.

The scholarship award application process involves two main applications:

Apply for PhD in Social Work degree
Apply for your Macqueen PhD Scholarship

Applying for the PhD Social Work

You will only be able to apply for a scholarship after you have submitted an application to study for the PhD in Social Work programme.

You must submit a complete application for admission to the PhD in Social Work research degree by the awards deadline. For further information on the application process, please see our how to apply page.

The application to study for your PhD programme is made via the University's online applications system EUCLID. The application to study must be submitted at least 5 working days prior to the scholarship application deadline. This allows your University Username (UUN eg s1234567) to be activated in time for you to submit your scholarship application before its deadline.

You must submit a full application by the deadline, including:

research proposal (see the section below)
final or interim official undergraduate and postgraduate transcripts
references
name of supervisor (from Option 1 or 2 below)
CV

These documents will be automatically pulled through to the scholarship system. The supporting documents submitted with your degree application will also be used to assess your funding application.

You do not need to wait to receive an offer for PhD study before applying for the Macqueen PhD Scholarship - but you must submit a complete application to study by the deadline or your scholarship application will not be considered.

Once you have submitted your application for study on the PhD in Social Work programme, you can then submit your scholarship funding application. Note that if you are also applying for other scholarships, you must submit a separate application for each individual funding scheme you are applying to.

For further information on PhD study please see our PhD Programmes webpage.

For further information on the application process, please see our how to apply page.

Applying for the Macqueen PhD Scholarship

Once you have submitted your application for study, you can then submit your Macqueen PhD Scholarship funding application.

Application to the Macqueen PhD Scholarship is via the University's online scholarships application form located within the EUCLID applicant hub.

After submitting your application for the PhD Social Work programme, you will receive a University Username (UUN eg s1234567) and access to MyEd where you can reach the scholarship application system.

Instructions on the online awards/scholarship application system can be found on the Student Systems webpage.

Before applying, please read the self-assessment page, which provides helpful information about the factors that help make a successful application. Please note that applications for scholarships are extremely competitive.

Supporting documents (upload these to your PhD programme application)

The supporting documents submitted with your application to study (research proposal/s, academic transcripts, CV, and references etc.) will be used to assess your funding application. Please also note that all material will be reviewed and assessed digitally.

Research proposal/s

We recommend you follow the guidance on writing research proposals.

Important: you may only apply for one of the projects, not both, and you must upload a separate research proposal for your chosen project. This research proposal should be up to 1,000 words with the heading, 'Macqueen Scholarship Application' and must outline how you would pursue the chosen option as a doctoral student. You must note the project option and supervisor it relates to on your proposal to confirm your choice.

If you have already uploaded a research proposal to your PhD application and require a new link for the above, please follow this guidance.

Personal statement

The scholarship application system will ask you to provide a personal statement (up to 500 words/3500 characters including spaces).

In your scholarship application, please tailor your personal statement to include why you wish to study at this School and why you are a desirable candidate for this particular scholarship. We are interested in you as a whole person, not just academically. Please also tell us about your preparedness to undertake and complete a PhD and to flourish as a result of PhD funding, and how you will contribute to a positive and diverse PhD community within the School. This could include diversity of identity, experience, or viewpoint.

Conditional offers

If you are in receipt of a conditional offer (including conditional on English language), you are still eligible to apply for the Macqueen PhD Scholarship.

Should you receive an award, but not meet the conditions of your offer, they would not be able to take up the award.

Help and guidance

Information on the Student Systems website may help you with guidance on the scholarship application system.

Applying for a postgraduate scholarship

Technical support and guidance

You can also view our applying for scholarships frequently asked questions:

Frequently asked questions - applying for scholarships in the MyEd portal

If you have application queries not answered in the above guidance, please contact pgresearch.sps@ed.ac.uk

For project-specific queries, please contact the supervisors.

Option 1 - Dr Robin Sen: LGBTQ+ single parenthood and caring in Scotland.

Supervisors

Dr Robin Sen (Principal Supervisor)

Dr Christopher Wretman (2nd Supervisor)

External partners:

LGBT Health and Well-Being (Edinburgh) who will provide in-kind contributions of:

Helping the PhD student to recruit the qualitative sample of parents and carers from those using the organisation’s services, and by helping the student connect with other key organisations with links to LGBTQ+ parents and carers;
Participating in supervisory sessions once a year to help guide the overall aims of the PhD;
Providing, subject to availability, office space for qualitative interviews should an interviewee prefer to be interviewed at the LGBT Health and Well-Being offices.

Background:

LGBTQ+ parents and carers may have care of children from previous relationships, via donor insemination, surrogacy arrangements, and also fostering and adoption. Given the increased ways in which LGBTQ+ people may be parents it also seems likely that their numbers have increased, and the inclusion of some groups of LGBTQ+ parents in media and fictional representations over the last decade has increased the social visibility of LGBTQ+ parenthood and caring. However, insights into the experiences of LGBTQ+ carers, reliable statistical data on the numbers of LGBTQ+ parents in Scotland, the consideration of the specific needs of LGBTQ+ parents and carers within policy and professional practice, and other important topics are currently lacking.

The LGBTQ+ label can also overlook the the range of diversity of sexual orientation and gender expression in contemporary society and family life, for example: those who have ‘minority minority’ LGBTQ+ status (Ruspini, 2013); and those LGBTQ+ people whose identities intersect with other marginalised social positions (Cho et al., 2013), including LGBTQ+ single parents. An emergent literature on lesbian, gay and parenting and caregiving exists, but the full range of LGBTQ+ parenting and family life is not yet reflected within it (Cocker and Hafford-Letchfield, 2021) and single parenthood is not well represented within it. Equally, while there is a sizeable literature on single parent families it currently includes little overt focus on the experiences of LGBTQ+ headed single parent/carer families. As a result, there is a gap in knowledge regarding the experiences of these parents and carers which includes an absence of detailed knowledge regarding what they have found helpful and unhelpful as parents and carers.

Like many public bodies, professions working with families have become more outwardly embracing of LGBTQ+ identities and parenthood in the 21st century. However, it is not known how this has translated into practices with LGBTQ+ parents and carers, and the small existing literature identifies concerns that professional practices with LGBTQ+ carers may still be marked by heteronormative and gender normative assumptions and models (Brown, 2024).

Research aims:

This PhD studentship will:

Explore the meanings of caring, and ‘doing family’ for LGBTQ+ single parents and carers of different sexual orientations and expressions of gender identity.
Explore what factors help and hinder LGBTQ+ single parents and carers in their caring role.
Describe and analyse the numbers and LGBTQ+ identities of LGBTQ+ single parents and carers living in Scotland.
Develop conceptual understandings of LGBTQ+ single parenthood and caring.

Aims 1 and 2

The PhD will be a qualitatively led mixed-methods study. At the heart of the study will be qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of LGBTQ+ single parents and carers living in Scotland who the successful candidate will identify with the support of LGBT Health and Well-Being and partner agencies. The study will seek to include single parents with a range of sexual orientations and expressions of gender identity falling under the LGBTQ+ label. The interviews may use a range of creative techniques (discussion of chosen objects, images, discussion of daily journals) to gain in-depth insights into the experience of how LGBTQ+ single parents ‘do family’ (Morgan, 2011) through focussing on families’ everyday practices and routines, and the ways in which single parenthood and LGBTQ+ status intersect with everyday caregiving roles and tasks. The interviews will also explore what LGBTQ+ single parents and carers have experienced as helpful supports and unhelpful practices from both support agencies - such as health services, schools, statutory and voluntary sector agencies services supporting parents and caregivers – and from individuals and groups within their own social networks.

Aim 3

The Scottish Census (2022) included questions on sexual orientation (Individual Question 8) and, for the first time, trans status and history (Individual Question 4). By quantitatively analysing aggregate level Census data the study will produce a robust current estimate of the number of LGBTQ+ single parent households in Scotland, and their diversity.

Aim 4

The study will combine in-depth insights into the doing of LGBTQ+ single parenthood and caring, its challenges and supports, and a statistical overview of the number, and diversity, of LGBTQ+ single parents and carers in contemporary Scotland. From this combination, the studentship will offer potential to develop new conceptual understandings of LGBTQ+ parenthood and caring in the UK in the 2020s.

References:

Brown, C. (2024) ‘Are We Gonna Have to Pretend to Be a Straight Couple?’: Examining the Specific Detriment that Cisgenderism Places on Non-Binary Adoption and Fostering Applicants in the United Kingdom. Behavioural Sciences 14 (7), 614. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs14070614

Cho, S., Crenshaw, K.W. and McCall, L. (2013) ‘Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38 (4), 785-810

Cocker, C., & Hafford-Letchfield, T. (2021). LGBT+ parenting. In The Routledge international handbook of social work and sexualities (pp. 182-194). Routledge.

Darwin, Z. and Greenfield, M. (2022) ‘ Diversity of Family Formation: LGBTQ+ Parents’, in Borg Xuereb, R. and Jomeen, J. (eds) Perspectives on Midwifery and Parenthood. Springer: https://doi-org.eux.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17285-4_13

Morgan, David H. G. (2011). 'Locating 'Family Practices''. Sociological Research Online, 16(4)14: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/16/4/14.html

Ruspini, E. (2013) Diversity in Family Life: Gender, Relationships and Social Change. Policy

Option 2 - Professor George Palattiyil: Resilience, social support, and parenting experiences of single parent Palestinian refugees in Jordan.

Supervisors

Professor George Palattiyil (Principal Supervisor)

Dr Lotte Segal (2nd Supervisor)

Dr Sumeet Jain (3rd Supervisor)

Potential applicants are encouraged to contact any of the supervisors if they would like to discuss their research ideas further, before making their application.

Background:

Occupation, armed conflict and settler-colonialism have long affected Palestinian families adversely in Palestine as well as in the diaspora. Due to displacement, imprisonment as well as what Sara Roy (2016) calls economic de-development, Israel’s occupation of Palestine has caused many families to be living in single-parented households (Taraki, 2006; Segal, 2016). Recently, and urgently, the number of Palestinian single parent families has surged as a result of the ongoing war in Gaza. In only the first three months of the current crisis, it was estimated that 3,000 women were widowed, and two mothers killed every hour (Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, 2024; UN Women, 2024). More than a year into Israel’s continuous aggression in Palestine, this number will inevitably be much higher. Not only because people are being killed, an equal number of Palestinians have been left critically wounded. In addition, Israel has detained an even higher number of Palestinians compared to the relatively stable number of around 4500 Palestinians held in Israeli detention through all times since 1967. Inevitably, the occupation and ongoing conflict have led to many single-parent Palestinian families resettling or living as refugees abroad (Tiltnes, 2013; UNHCR, 2008).

While violent events affect mental health and well-being, those who have been exposed to violence are also affected by ongoing stressors including family functioning, unemployment, and access to basic needs (Bronfenbrenner, 1995; Miller & Rasmussen, 2017, Punamaki, 2014). Poor mental health and wellbeing in parents may result in intergenerational effects on the mental health of their children—a documented phenomenon among Palestinian, single-parent, and refugee families (Palosaari, 2013; Agnafors, 2019; Flanagan, 2020).

While parents’ mental health and increased nurturing has been associated with better outcomes in children in Palestine, this is less present amongst families who have experienced violence (Abu Baker, 2021; Harsha, 2020). Moreover, anecdotal evidence points to an increase in mental health issues among families who have fled to neighbouring countries and living as refugees.

In tandem with further studies into the long-term adverse psychosocial effects of war, investigating resilience as a component of the Palestinian individual and collective experience will help generate an understanding of how coping mechanisms and social support can be cultivated amongst Palestinian single parents as prerequisites for positive parenting and caregiving experiences, while putting life together as refugees.

A vital cultural concept in such an investigation is the notion of ‘sumoud’ which is a vernacular expression of resilience and steadfastness, of staying put and going in the face of aggression (Sayigh 1981 & Khalili, 2007; Unger, 2012; Meari, 2014; Segal, 2016). We therefore propose a study of both the potential and limitations of how the practice of ‘sumoud’ is twinly curbed as well as a resource of resilience for single-parent families in the Palestinian collective.

A culturally sensitive understanding of Palestinian single parents’ experiences and conceptions of resilience, social support, and parenting can inform social workers and caseworkers in community, non-governmental, and governmental services on how to better advise and make referrals for these families. Improving such families’ mental health and well-being is also likely to lead to better outcomes for their children while growing up in refugee settings.

Currently, the literature on parenting and caregiving experiences of Palestinian single parents is limited. This research can inform pathways in social services on how to best enhance resilience and social support which are expected to have positive effects on parenting experiences. This is especially impactful for a population that has experienced high levels of violence and adversity and includes a large amount of internally and externally displaced people.

Study aims:

The project has four aims:

to understand the relevance and limitations of locally salient concepts, such as ‘sumoud’ in the ways that Palestinian single parents manage stress, uncertainty and on-going crises,
to understand the impact of being a single parent refugee on their mental health,
to understand their experience of support through community and social networks and systems, and
to understand how intrinsic and external support factors reflect in experiences of parenting or caregiving and their implications for policies and services.

Research questions:

How do Palestinian, single-parents draw on locally salient psychological resources, and concepts such as ‘sumoud’, to manage stress, uncertainty and ongoing crises?
What are the emotional and mental health issues faced by Palestinian refugees living as single parents?
How do Palestinian, single-parents engage and experience support through community and social networks and systems?
What lessons can be learned from the above to inform policies and services to better support single parent families living as refugees abroad?

Methods:

The project will be located in Jordan and adopt a mixed-methods approach. Drawing on qualitative design, in-depth interviews investigating the lived experiences of single parents will be carried out. Interviews will be supplemented with ethnographic, community-based participatory methods (this could include photovoice, storytelling, or community mapping activities etc). Taking a decolonial approach, the project will use alternative or creative research methods that promote the inclusion of and knowledge production by research participants themselves. Therefore, knowledge of Arabic is desirable and those with no or limited Arabic proficiency will need to hire language support.

Study participants’ mental health and wellbeing status will be captured by General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). GHQ-12 is a standardized questionnaire designed to screen for psychiatric disorders both in clinical and community settings and has been found to be a reliable measure of mental wellbeing (Hankins, 2008). The candidate will have local support from supervisors’ collaborators in Jordan including the Centre for Refugees and Migration Studies at Yarmouk University, UNWRA, and other civil society organisations that work with refugees in Jordan. The study will follow robust ethical procedures and secure SPS Ethics approval before data collection begins. Narrative analysis will be used to make sense of the qualitative data while advice will be sought from SPS Methods Training Centre to help determine the best statistical approaches to analyse the quantitative data.

Please note that the Macqueen Award covers all university PhD fees, plus an annual stipend at UKRI equivalent level and an annual research support grant of £750. However additional funding may be required for fieldwork- while efforts will be made to secure additional funding, please note that this is not a guarantee.

References:

Abu Baker, D., Calam, R., & El-Khani, A. (2021). Protective factors in the face of political violence: The role of caregiver resilience and parenting styles in Palestine. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 27(3), 405.

Agnafors, S., Bladh, M., Svedin, C.G. et al. (2019). Mental health in young mothers, single mothers and their children. BMC Psychiatry 19, 112.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). Developmental ecology through space and time: A future perspective, in Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the ecology of human development. American Psychological Association: Washington, DC, US. p. 619-647.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. (2023). Over 10,000 infants and children killed in Israel’s Gaza genocide, hundreds of whom are trapped beneath debris https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6020/Over-10,000-infants-and-chil…

Flanagan, N., et al. (2020). Crossing borders: a systematic review identifying potential mechanisms of intergenerational trauma transmission in asylum-seeking and refugee families. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 2020. 11(1): p. 1790283.

Hankins, M. (2008). The factor structure of the twelve item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12): the result of negative phrasing? Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health., 4: 10-10.1186/1745-0179-4-10.

Harsha, N., Ziq, L., Lynch, M. A., & Giacaman, R. (2020). Assessment of parental nurturing and associated social, economic, and political factors among children in the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territory (WB/oPt). BMC pediatrics, 20, 1-10.

Khalili, L. (2007). Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine : The Politics of National Commemoration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Prin

Miller, K.E. and Rasmussen, A. (2017). The mental health of civilians displaced by armed conflict: an ecological model of refugee distress. Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci, 26(2): p. 129-138.

Meari, L. 2014 Sumud: A Palestinian Philosophy of Confrontation in Colonial Prisons. South Atlantic Quarterly (2014) 113 (3): 547–578.

Palosaari, E., Punamäki, R. L., Qouta, S., & Diab, M. (2013). Intergenerational effects of war trauma among Palestinian families mediated via psychological maltreatment. Child abuse & neglect, 37(11), 955-968.

Punamäki, R.L. (2014). Mental health and development among children living in violent conditions: underlying mechanisms for promoting peace. In P. Britto, J.F. Leckman, C. Panter–Brick, and R. Salah (Eds.), Pathways to Peace: The Transformative Power of Children and Families. Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol 15, J Lupp, series ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Roy, S (2016). The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (Expanded Third Edition). Institute for Palestine Studies, Harvard University

Sayigh, R. (1981). Encounters with Palestinian Women under Occupation. Journal of Palestine Studies, 10(4), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.2307/2536386

Segal, L. (2016). No Place for Grief. Mourning, Prisoners and Martyrs in Contemporary Palestine. Philadelphia. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press

Tiltnes, A., Zhang, H. Progress, challenges, diversity Insights into the socio-economic conditions of Palestinian refugees in Jordan. (2013). https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/insights_into_the_socio-econo…

UNHCR. (2008). Vulnerable Palestinians head towards a new life in Iceland https://www.unhcr.org/au/news/vulnerable-palestinians-head-towards-new-…

UN Women. (2024). Press release: Two mothers are killed in Gaza every hour as fighting exceeds 100 days (2024). https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2024/01/press-rel…

Ungar, M. (2012). Researching and theorizing resilience across cultures and contexts. Preventive Medicine: An International Journal Devoted to Practice and Theory, 55(5), 387–389

Assessment process and results

Postgraduate Advisors and supporting Subject Area academics will undertake an initial screening assessment of all scholarship applications with the strongest applications put forward to the next stage.

At this stage, the Macqueen selection panel – consisting of academics in, or linked to the Social Work subject area at Edinburgh, will meet to assess the shortlisted candidates in Spring 2025. Results will be communicated to candidates by email shortly thereafter.

The selection panel will make the award based on the best candidate and best candidate fit for whichever supervisor-led proposal the candidate has chosen to apply for. This selection is ordinarily based on the shortlisted written applications alone, but the panel reserves the possibility of interviewing shortlisted candidates if it deems this necessary

Awardees are given 7 calendar days to respond to the scholarship offer. If no response is received by the given date, the offer will be rescinded and awarded to the next reserve candidate.

Note that we also hold a reserve list in the event that a successful candidate later declines their award, for example because they obtain different funding. In this case, the award will be offered to the top candidate on the reserve list.

Please note that as part of the selection process an external representative will be reviewing your application.

We aim to contact Macqueen PhD Scholarship candidates to let them know the outcome of their application by the end of April 2025.

The Macqueen award value

The award covers:

Full tuition fees (UK, EU or Overseas level)
The stipend will be set to the UKRI level for 2025/26. For reference, the UKRI level for 2024/25 is currently £19,237 for full-time students, or the pro rata equivalent for part-time students.
a £750 annual research grant

The award is made for 3 years for full time students or 6 years pro-rata for part-time students.

This award has been made possible by a generous donation from The Julie-Ann Macqueen Trust. Ms Macqueen played a leading role in bringing the struggles of single-parent families to the attention of the public and policy and law-makers.

The generous donation from The Julie-Ann Macqueen Trust will fund two Postgraduate Research Social Work scholarships for students whose research focuses on one-parent families.

Other funding opportunities

This funding form is also used for several other awards, including:

Important - please ensure you check each scholarship deadline as they may differ.

You must enter a separate scholarship application for each award you wish to be considered for.

If you are applying for more than one PhD programme, you must also submit separate scholarship applications for each programme.

Scholarships