Research Studentships

Queen Mary Studentship with Luverhulme

Project title: Regional Organisations and Electoral integrity peer review mechanisms in Africa (RO & EIPRMs). 

Funder: The Leverhulme Trust  

Lead investigators: Dr Innocent Batsani-Ncube (Queen Mary University of London) and Anna Mwaba (Smith College). 

PhD theme: The evolution and politics of electoral integrity peer review mechanisms in the East African Community (EAC).  

Supervisors: Dr Innocent Batsani-Ncube and Dr Keren Weitzberg (Queen Mary University of London). 

Specification 

The School of Politics and International Relations (SPIR) at Queen Mary University of London welcomes applications for a fully funded PhD Studentship. The candidate will conceptualise a coherent research project, conduct fieldwork and produce a PhD thesis of publishable quality on the evolution and politics of electoral integrity peer review mechanisms in the East African Community (EAC).

The candidate will be expected to review the political and governance instruments of the East African Community (EAC), explore the evolution of EAC electoral integrity peer review mechanisms (EIPRMs) and analyse how the EAC EIPRMs are formulated, operationalised and/or contested. The candidate will conduct a single in-depth case study or a comparative study of the development of internal electoral integrity mechanisms in two or all the original three EAC Partner States - Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. This will include exploring how election management systems such as digital electoral infrastructures, bvr technologies, electoral courts are reshaping electoral integrity mechanisms or producing new contestations around electoral integrity. The candidate will situate in-country electoral integrity mechanisms within the broader EAC framework and investigate the role that the case study countries have played in shaping the regional EIPRMs context and the ways and extent to which the countries have enabled or impeded the effective implementation of the EAC EIPRMs.

Furthermore, the candidate will also be expected to provide intellectual and administrative support to the wider project through conducting literature reviews, writing blog articles for the project website, organising seminars and academic panels and managing the project’s public-facing communication channels. 

Eligibility: The candidate should:  

• Be able to commence the PhD studies by the 01st of July 2025 (hard deadline). 
• Hold a first class (distinction) master’s degree or at least 2:1 classification (or the equivalent) in Politics and International Relations or a related social science discipline. The grade of the dissertation component of the master’s degree should be 70% or above.   
• Have minimum two years field experience working in the politics and governance sector in East Africa.
• Have initial high-level professional contacts in East African regional and country institutions that include but are not limited to electoral commissions, ministries of foreign affairs, national and EAC legislatures, judiciaries, and government bureaucracies. Alternatively, the candidate should demonstrate a practical strategy to gain access to interview subjects. 
• Have some experience in writing blog articles and use of social media for professional communication.  

What we offer: 

Tuition: The studentship is open to international students as it covers either UK home or international fees in full for the three years. Overseas fees are currently pegged at £23,050 per year.   

Maintenance: The studentship covers maintenance stipend at UKRI rates for the three years. The maintenance stipend is pegged at £20,622 per year. 

Visa reimbursement: Upon production of receipts the successful candidate will be reimbursed up to £822 for visa fees, £3104 for the NHS surcharge and £200 for visa medical checkup expenses. 

Inbound flight: Upon production of a receipt, the successful candidate will be reimbursed for a one-way economy flight ticket to London at the start of the studentship. 

Fieldwork expenses: The studentship has a small travel grant to cover fieldwork expenses including for conducting electoral observation of General Elections in an East African country.  

Conference travel: The studentship includes a grant to attend two major academic conferences, the 2026 African Studies Association - UK conference and the 2027 European Conference on African Studies.  

Application package  

1. Apply to the QMUL PhD programme and submit your application reference number to Programme Administrator via AskQM. 
2. Include a one-page cover letter that explicitly explains how you meet the PhD Studentship eligibility criteria. 
3. Use the SPIR format to submit a two-thousand-word PhD research proposal.   
4. Include your CV, all University transcripts (undergraduate and postgraduate) and 2 reference letters as attachments. 
5. Please quote the reference: Ib’s RO & EIPRMs project when you submit your application.  

Application deadline: 23:55 on Friday, 9th May 2025 

Further details:  

The successful candidate will be offered a formal studentship award letter which will be separately provided from the QMUL Offer of Admission into the PhD Programme – which is subject to standard checks for eligibility.  

For further details, you can contact Dr Innocent Batsani-Ncube at i.ncube@qmul.ac.uk    

Main project overview 

The Leverhulme Trust funded RO & EIPRMS project aims to co-generate original conceptual insights into the interests and power dynamics that inform the negotiation and implementation – inclusive of acceptance and pushback – of electoral integrity peer review mechanisms within African regional organisations (ROs). In this project, African ROs are understood to be voluntary associations of states from Africa’s geographic zones. Examples include the East African Community (EAC), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Although these organisations were founded for economic cooperation by non-democratic one-party state regimes, after the cold war era they integrated regional democracy building as a core tenet of their overt operations (Boutros-Ghali,1992; Pevehouse,2002). 

The African ROs have since developed elaborate mechanisms to promote and encourage the conduct of democratic elections in their member states’ territories. The mechanisms include summit level electoral peer review channels, written down (and agreed to) principles and guidelines for holding democratic elections, electoral advisory bodies, electoral observation missions and intra-regional post-election conflict resolution conventions. We collectively refer to these mechanisms as electoral integrity peer review mechanisms (EIPRMs). Therefore, regional EIPRMs are the institutional and operational mechanisms that enjoin member states to conduct elections that meet the electoral integrity test. 

Electoral integrity refers to elections that meet the express standards provided for in national, regional, and international statutes and conventions (Norris,2014). There is legitimate expectation that all member states who would have signed up to these mechanisms should aim at holding elections that meet or surpass the established standards.  

Western liberal democracies, African and International democracy building organisations and scholars of democratisation have invested financial, technical, and intellectual resources to support the institutional design, operation, and monitoring of the EIPRMs.  However, despite the sustained financial, organisational, and intellectual investment, the ROs EIPRMs are not working as intended. Far from positively shaping the nature and character of electoral integrity in their respective regions, the ROs ostensibly enable authoritarianism through providing external legitimacy to electoral autocrats (Stoddard,2017; Debre, 2021; Debre, 2022). Rather than enforce the impartial EIPRM framework, regional elites are more inclined towards extending unqualified solidarity to ‘offending’ state parties (Batsani-Ncube,2023). However, the extant literature on regional organisations and electoral integrity in Africa inadequately addresses this phenomenon. We still do not know how and under what conditions this happens especially in the context of the presence of explicit regional guidelines and principles governing the conduct of democratic elections. 

Queen Mary Humanities and Social Sciences Studentship

We encourage applications from UK candidates in BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) groups who have been previously under-represented in this process.

To be eligible to apply for these studentships you must be UK permanent residents from a BAME background, and eligible to pay home student fees. You will automatically also be considered for our other studentships. Our goal is to recruit outstanding and diverse candidates across the full range of studentships.

How to apply

You should apply for your place at QMUL via the online portal by Wednesday 22 January 2025 (17:00 UK time). In all cases, earlier application is strongly advised.

On the online application form, you should indicate that you would like your application to be considered for the Principal's Studentship Competition. (You must be accepted onto your chosen PhD programme by 24 February 2025).

If you have already applied to QMUL to begin a PhD programme in Autumn 2025, you may revise the research proposal and statement of purpose that you previously submitted, to take account of our Guidance to Applicants. 

Before applying, please read our Guidance to Applicants [PDF 134KB], which will help you to complete your applications. The guidance is relevant to all applicants, regardless of subject area and type of Studentship.

If you wish to apply for the BAME studentships, you should specify this in the statement of purpose that will form part of your application.

SHF/HSS candidates also need to indicate that they wish to be considered for the award, and to state how they meet the eligibility criteria or are subject to exceptional circumstances. These declarations are excluded from the character limit for their statement of purpose.

If you have already applied to QMUL to begin a PhD programme in autumn 2025, you may revise the research proposal and statement of purpose that you previously submitted, to take account of our Guidance to Applicants. However, you are not required to do so. If you wish to submit revised documents, you should email them to the Director of Graduate Studies in the appropriate School, giving the ID number from your application.

If you have already begun a PhD programme at QMUL, you should email the Director of Graduate Studies in the appropriate School, giving your student ID number and supplying a research proposal and statement of purpose (length and contents as indicated in our Guidance to Applicants).

How your application will be assessed

Your application will be considered and ranked by a School selection panel. Selected applications will then be considered and ranked by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.  If a candidate has already begun their PhD, selection panels will be looking for a research proposal that is concomitantly stronger than the proposal of someone yet to begin their thesis.

The School panel will evaluate applications on the basis of the following criteria and weightings:

• Quality of proposal (50%) – i.e. the significance and originality of the proposed research; its underpinning ideas, aims, and research questions; the research design, methodology, and/or sources; the suitability of the proposal for doctoral research; opportunities for dissemination and potential impact; and any ethical considerations that the proposal may raise
• Preparedness of applicant (25%) – i.e. previous academic achievements in relevant subject areas; any relevant professional/practitioner experience (particularly for applicants with non-standard academic trajectories); and relevant knowledge, skills, and/or training for the proposed research
• Feasibility of project (25%) – i.e. the project’s likely completion within the timeframe; the identification of training needs; justification of fieldwork and study visits; and fit with the expertise and interests of the two named supervisors

The Faculty panel will then evaluate applications on the basis of the following criteria and weightings:

• Quality of proposal (40%) – defined as above
• Preparedness of applicant (20%) – defined as above
• Feasibility of project (20%) – defined as above
• School ranking (20%) or the additional points required in the Candidate Statement of Purpose for the SHF/QMUL HSS applicants (20%) – as explained in the specific guidance

At both School and Faculty levels, if two or more candidates are equally ranked, preference will be given to the candidate scoring more highly on the following criteria: quality of proposal; if still equal, preparedness of applicant; if still equal, feasibility of project.

Offers will be made to successful candidates in late March 2025, to be accepted or declined within one week.

The studentships cover all tuition fees, and provide a grant for living expenses at UK Research Council rates for London (to be confirmed for the academic year 2025-26).

Queen Mary University of London Collaborative Studentship with Citizens UK on Housing Access and Digital Transitions 

The following Collaborative Studentship will commence in September 2025: 

Project Title: Housing Access and Digital Transitions: A Participatory Study with first-time home seekers in Tower Hamlets 

Collaborative Partner: Citizens UK  

Queen Mary Department: School of Politics and International Relations 

Lead Supervisor: Dr Rachel Humphris, r.humphris@qmul.ac.uk (co-supervised by Dr Elizabeth Storer, School of Geography) 

Project description: 

This studentship aims to investigate the relationship between digital technologies and housing access in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is anticipated to involve a participatory methodology with migrants who have recently settled in Tower Hamlets. Through this collaborative and co-designed approach, the project will explore the lived experience of emergent digital infrastructures. The study's purpose is to explore how digital technologies shape housing access, particularly for migrants seeking housing for the first time, and to understand the information sources and decision-making processes involved. 

The project has three main objectives: 

• Develop a new methodology combining community organizing with digital welfare studies.  
• Provide empirical data on the role of digital technologies in housing access for migrants seeking housing. 
• Contribute insights on digital technologies to inform local authority data practices. 

The research is timely, as European welfare states are increasingly adopting digital solutions due to rising demand, budget cuts, and post-pandemic recovery. While digitalization promises efficiency, it also risks exacerbating biases, transparency, and privacy issues. The study will focus on how these effects are visible in migrants' housing experiences. It will explore the challenges migrants face in accessing safe housing through digital platforms and how technology mediates their interactions with the welfare state. 

The study contributes to three scholarly areas. First, it extends migration studies by addressing the digital consequences of the "welfare-migration nexus," where migration regimes connect various local, national, and international levels to control borders, mobility, and welfare rights. Second, in housing studies, it unsettles the assumption that all those who access housing are citizens. Lastly, for digital welfare scholarship it adds the lived experiences of marginalized groups interacting with digital technologies, highlighting both empowering and constraining aspects. 

The methodology for the study is based on community organizing principles used by Citizens UK (CUK), translated into academic research practices. CUK has deep community ties, decades of expertise in community organising and a track record of advocacy and policy impact. The PhD student will spend nine months working with CUK, conducting interviews, ethnographic research, and participatory methodologies to follow the housing experiences of migrants in Tower Hamlets including participant observations at digital outreach events and training sessions. 

Length of Studentship: 

The studentship will commence in September 2025, for a duration of 3.5 years.  

The LISS ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership Collaborative Studentships cover full fees and an annual stipend. The stipend per year for 2024/25 entry was £21,237.  

Candidate Requirements: 

Candidates must already have completed a Masters degree in a related subject (e.g., Anthropology, Human Geography, Sociology, Public Policy, Political Science). It is also possible for the duration of the studentship to be extended so that a candidate can complete an MRes. It is desirable that candidates have some experience in community organising, working in community organisations or knowledge of one of Tower Hamlet’s community languages.  

How to apply: 

To apply for this Collaborative Studentship, you should make an application via MRes/PhD Political Science (https://www.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/subjects/politics.html). You should clearly cite the Collaborative Studentship project title and outline your suitability for the Studentship within your application.  

Full details of admissions requirements are set out here.

Please note that you do not need to submit a full-length research proposal for this studentship. Rather, please submit a 500 word ‘Statement of Interest’ in the project that outlines your previous academic, practical, lived and/or linguistic experience.   

Deadline for applications:  28 February 2025 

Interviews: 12 March 2025