Applicants must have obtained their Master's degree (or equivalent) within 4 years of the programme start date (28th September 2020).
Applicants must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the UK for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the programme start date (28th September 2020). Short stays, such as holidays, are not taken into account.
These scholarships are available for UK, EU and international students
The working language of the POLISS network is English and researchers must be able to demonstrate their ability to work and write in the English language. All deliverables for the project and all network meetings and training activities will be conducted in English.
Selection for funding is on the basis of outstanding academic merit and research potential. This relates both to your past academic record and to an assessment of your likely aptitude to complete a PhD in your chosen topic in the time allocated.
Your application should make reference to where your research will fit into the themes required, Inclusive Regional Growth or Globalisation, FDI and Regional Structural Change.
Additional Information relating to the two themes below:
Inclusive Regional Growth
A widespread concern has emerged in many advanced countries that the benefits of economic growth are not distributed equally. In response, the notion of Inclusive Growth – a focus on both the pace and pattern of growth – has become increasingly important. The notion formed part of the Europe 2020 strategy and many cities and regions have developed strategies to make growth ‘inclusive’. Yet the conceptualisation, evidence and policy frameworks behind these strategies remain weak. This project would investigate the relationship between growth and inclusion from a theoretical point of view and empirically by using both econometric analysis and case studies of particular cities and regions. Using a combination of micro-data sets for member states and subnational level socio-economic indicators, we will conduct quantitative analysis to investigate the extent to which regional growth spells appeared particularly inclusive. The focus will be on policy relevant factors such as the sectoral composition of growth and the impact of different policy regimes. We will complement this econometric work with case studies of ‘outlier’ regions where growth has been particularly inclusive, digging into the specific socio-economic conditions and institutions, policy frameworks and policy networks, which have enabled inclusion. The results will help inform place-sensitive policy which aims to ensure growth was inclusive.
Globalisation, FDI and Regional Structural Change
The transformations in the worldwide division of labour brought about by the intertwined forces of globalisation and technological change have shown unintended negative effects, particularly evident in advanced economic systems: uneven spatial distribution of wealth and rising within-country inequality. We argue that the relevance of connectivity (proxied by foreign capital investments, FDI, GVCs) for regional economic development is still underestimated and suffers from a nation-biased perspective in both theory and policy domains. As a consequence, the relationship between spatial inequality, spurred by the global division of labour, and the changes in the structural advantages of regions, remains to be fully understood in its implications for economic growth, territorial resilience and industrial and regional policies. We will make use of different datasets at both world-wide (e.g. fDi Market, FT; Orbis- Bureau van Dijk) and national levels (e.g. AFDI in the UK) to conduct quantitative analyses of regional connectivity in the EU, examining the impact on regional structural change. We will also complement the econometric evidence with qualitative case-studies, which will help qualify our results and inform place-sensitive regional policy designed to integrate the connectivity dimension in pursuing local economic development and territorial equity.