Most funded doctorates ask you to disappear into a lab for three years and hope teaching experience arrives later. The University of Hull is doing the opposite. From September 2026, the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences will appoint two Graduate Teaching Assistants who will complete a full-time PhD and teach part-time, with a stipend of £21,805 a year and tuition fees covered at the UK rate.
The clock is short. The official vacancy closes on 2 September 2026, interviews are scheduled for the week commencing 7 September 2026, and only two posts are on offer. If you hold a strong 2:1 in sport and exercise science, sports rehabilitation or a closely related field, this is one of the more practical fully funded PhD UK 2026 routes still open.
Scholarship Summary
- Host Country: UK
- Host University: University of Hull
- Scholarship Type: PhD Scholarships
- Eligible Countries: All Countries
- Scholarship Benefits: Full tuition fee, Living stipend, etc.
Why This GTA PhD Is Different From a Standard Studentship
A conventional studentship funds research. A Graduate Teaching Assistant post funds research and builds the CV that universities actually hire from.
Hull is explicit about the split:
- The PhD is full-time.
- The GTA role is part-time.
- You start in September 2026.
- The post is based on campus at the University of Hull and is not eligible for Agile Working.
That combination matters. Many early-career academics leave a PhD with a thesis and almost no classroom hours. Hull states that it has a strong record of GTA staff moving into permanent academic or research posts after graduation. You are not only producing original research. You are learning how undergraduate and postgraduate teaching works inside a Faculty of Health Sciences school that already runs taught MSc courses, MSc by Research and PhD programmes.
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The school itself sits inside the Faculty of Health Sciences and was established in 2003. Its teaching quality is gold-rated under the Teaching Excellence Framework. Research priorities include cardiorespiratory health, prosthetic provision and long-term rehabilitation after limb loss, cancer survivorship through exercise and lifestyle, and athlete development and performance. That mix is useful if you want a doctorate that can travel into sport, clinical rehab or applied health research.
Funding: What “Fully Funded” Means on This Post
The vacancy is clear on the doctoral package:
- PhD stipend: £21,805 per year
- Tuition: full fees covered at the UK rate
- GTA salary shown on the advert: £9,662
- Start: September 2026
- Posts available: two
The £21,805 figure matches the UKRI national minimum stipend from 1 October 2026. UKRI stipends are paid to support living costs while you study. Always check the current official rate before you budget, because research councils revise the figure each year.
UKRI stipend guidance: Support for UKRI-funded students
Hull fees and funding: Postgraduate research fees and funding
One point international applicants must not skip: “fees covered at the UK rate” is not the same sentence as “all overseas fees waived.” UK home PhD fees sit near the UKRI fee contribution (around £5,238 for 2026/27 on published UKRI tables). International research fees at Hull are commonly listed much higher, often around £20,000 a year on third-party course listings. Unless the school confirms a full overseas waiver in writing, an international candidate may still face a fee gap. Email the supervisors listed below and ask, in one line, whether the GTA package covers the overseas fee difference.
Do not treat the GTA salary line and the stipend line as one pot until HR confirms how they interact. The advert lists both. Your offer letter is the document that will settle tax, hours and payment structure.
The Labs You Would Actually Use
Hull has spent heavily on facilities, and the GTA advert reads like a kit list rather than a slogan.
Biomechanics and performance:
- New biomechanics laboratory
- Marker-based and markerless Theia motion capture
- Multiple force plates
- Musculoskeletal modelling software
- EMG
- Isokinetic dynamometry
- Strength and conditioning suite with 1080 Sprint
Physiology and rehabilitation:
- Environmental chamber
- Specialist respiratory physiology and lung function testing
- High Performance Centre for elite sport
- Sport Rehabilitation suite
- Health and Injury Performance Hub, including a new anti-gravity treadmill and therapeutic facilities
That equipment is not decoration. Three of the four advertised projects need it: adolescent female footballer development, exercise guidance for people with asthma, and movement economy in people with below-knee amputation. If your application only discusses theory and never shows how you would use these tools, it will look unfinished.
The school also works with professional clubs and local health providers, including links associated with Hull City, Hull FC and Hull KR, plus the student-facing Health, Injury and Performance Hub. Those partnerships are useful if your research needs participants, applied settings or knowledge-exchange outputs.
The Four Funded Project Titles You Must Choose From
You cannot bring a free-form proposal. The school wants applications tied to one of four projects. Your 500-word literature review must sit on the topic you pick and name at least one research gap.
1. Growing into the Game: Understanding Female Footballer Health, Development, Cognition and Performance During Adolescence
Supervisors: Dr Kate Donnan (k.j.donnan@hull.ac.uk) and Dr Chris Towlson-McLaren (c.towlson@hull.ac.uk)
This project sits in a crowded but still under-served space: girls’ and women’s football through adolescence, when growth, load, cognition and performance collide. A sharp review would not repeat “more research is needed on female athletes.” It would isolate a measurable gap, for example around cognition-performance coupling, health surveillance during growth spurts, or how development data should change coaching decisions.
2. ACTIVE Asthma: Co-designing Exercise Guidance for People with Asthma
Supervisors: Dr Andrew Simpson (a.simpson2@hull.ac.uk), Dr Laura Gale (laura.gale@hull.ac.uk) and Prof Mike Crooks
This is an applied health project, not a pure performance study. Co-design means patients, clinicians and researchers shape the guidance together. Strong applicants will show they understand why generic “exercise is good” advice fails people with asthma, and how respiratory testing facilities at Hull could support a better protocol.
3. Movement Economy in People with a Below-Knee Amputation: Comparing Standard and Self-Aligning Ankle Prostheses for People with Limited Mobility
Supervisors: Dr Tom Nickolay (t.nickolay@hull.ac.uk), Dr Steve Hayes (s.hayes@hull.ac.uk) and Prof Natalie Vanicek (n.vanicek@hull.ac.uk)
This project needs biomechanics literacy. Force plates, motion capture, modelling and clinical reasoning all sit on the page. The interesting gap is not “prostheses exist.” It is how self-aligning ankles change economy in people with limited mobility, not only in high-functioning prosthetic users who dominate much of the literature.
4. The Cyclical Nature of Perfectionism: Understanding the Reciprocal Relationship Between Performance and Perfectionism in the Sport Domain
Supervisors: Dr Dan Fleming (dan.fleming@hull.ac.uk), Prof Adam Nicholls (a.nicholls@hull.ac.uk) and Dr Laura Gale (laura.gale@hull.ac.uk)
This is the psychology-heavy option. Reciprocal relationship is the key phrase: performance may feed perfectionism as much as perfectionism feeds performance. A competitive review will critique cross-sectional work and argue why a longitudinal or intensive-repeated-measures design is required.
Pick the project you can defend in an interview the following week. Do not choose the title that sounds fashionable if you cannot discuss methods for 20 minutes.
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Who Can Apply for The Fully Funded PhD UK 2026
The advert sets a clean academic bar:
- Minimum 2:1 undergraduate degree in Sport and/or Exercise Science, Sports Rehabilitation, or an equivalent discipline
- Good attainment on your undergraduate research project or thesis
- Excellent written and oral communication
- Ability to work independently
- High motivation for doctoral research
A master’s degree is not listed as essential. A strong undergraduate dissertation can carry the application if the literature review is precise. If your degree sits just outside the named subjects, use the covering letter to map modules, methods and dissertation topic onto the chosen project. Equivalence is allowed; vagueness is not.
The university states it is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and wants staff communities that reflect its students. That is not a substitute for the person specification. Your covering letter still has to show you can teach, write and finish a doctorate.
English language requirements for international applicants follow the university’s postgraduate research rules. Check the research-degree entry page before you submit.
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How to Apply for The Fully Funded PhD UK 2026 Before the Vacancy Disappears
Applications close at 00:01 on 2 September 2026. Hull reserves the right to close earlier if it receives enough applications. Submit early.
You must upload more than a CV.
Document 1: literature review, maximum 500 words
- Choose one of the four projects.
- Summarise the current evidence, not the entire field.
- Identify at least one research gap.
- Signal a feasible doctoral angle that fits Hull’s facilities and supervisors.
Document 2: covering letter, maximum 500 words
- Map your qualifications and experience to the person specification in the job description.
- Show you understand the dual role: researcher and teacher.
- Keep it specific. Name methods you have used, populations you have worked with, and teaching or presentation experience you already have.
Interviews take place the week commencing 7 September 2026. That is a fast turnaround. Have your project reading done before you press submit, not after the invite arrives.
Apply through the official Workday vacancy: Graduate Teaching Assistant JR102958
Wider Hull careers portal: University of Hull Careers
How to Write a 500-Word Review That Gets Shortlisted
Selection panels read dozens of polite summaries. They remember the one that makes a gap feel obvious.
Use this structure:
- Two sentences of stakes. Who is affected, and why the problem is current.
- What the best recent studies actually show. Cite patterns, not a laundry list of authors.
- Where those studies break. Sample, sex, age, prosthesis type, asthma severity, design, or outcome measure.
- The gap in one sentence.
- Why Hull can close it. Motion capture, respiratory labs, HIP Hub, football networks, or the named supervisors’ expertise.
Stay inside 500 words. A review that overruns looks like an applicant who will also overrun a thesis.
The covering letter should answer a different question: can this person teach and finish. Mention laboratory demonstrating, seminar delivery, coaching, clinical placement supervision, marking, or public-facing science communication if you have it. If you do not have formal teaching hours, show transferable delivery skills without pretending you have been a lecturer.
Who Should Treat This as a Priority
This post is a strong fit if you want:
- A fully funded PhD UK 2026 start without waiting for the next UKRI DTP cycle
- Teaching hours on the CV before the viva
- Access to high-end biomechanics and physiology kit
- A project already scoped with named supervisors
- A school that says GTA graduates often move into academic or research posts
It is a weaker fit if you need remote working, want to invent a fifth project title, or require a confirmed full overseas fee waiver before you can enrol. Those points should be settled by email now, not after an offer.
If this exact vacancy is the wrong match, keep searching current UK doctoral funding boards rather than recycling last year’s bookmarks. Useful starting points include FindAPhD, Hull’s postgraduate research fees and funding pages, and the school’s subject pages.
Final Check Before You Submit
- You selected one of the four official projects.
- Your literature review is 500 words or fewer and names a gap.
- Your covering letter is 500 words or fewer and follows the person specification.
- You can attend interview in the week of 7 September 2026.
- You understand that fees are covered at the UK rate.
- You applied on the Workday listing, not through a copied third-party form.
Two people will get these posts. The application is short on purpose. The candidates who treat those 1,000 words as a research-and-teaching audition, rather than a generic scholarship essay, are the ones the panel can appoint on a one-week interview timetable.
Helpful Links
- Official listing: University of Hull Graduate Teaching Assistant JR102958
- School overview: Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at Hull
Doctoral programme page: Sport, Health and Exercise Science research degrees - Apply here: University of Hull Graduate Teaching Assistant – JR102958