Doctoral research projects
Find out more about the postgraduate doctoral projects which National Museums Scotland co-supervises supported from a variety of sources.
These projects usually last a minimum of 3.5 years (full-time study) and cover a variety of subjects from across the collections.
Whilst we do not fund PhDs directly, doctoral researchers are supported from a variety of funders including the Leverhulme Trust, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
National Museums Scotland is part of the Scottish Cultural Heritage Consortium (SCHC) which is an AHRC funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme funding up to 6 PhD projects per year.
Find out more about funding
Research themes
Doctoral research projects fit broadly under the following three major themes:
Scotland's Material Heritage
2021 – Shaping Taste, Building Knowledge: Collecting China in Scotland, in the early 20th Century
2021 – The Elect and the Damned: the material culture of belief in post-Reformation Scotland, 1560-1750
2021 – Loyal Exchange: the material and visual culture of Jacobite exile, 1716-60
2021 – Collecting the Nation: Scottish history, patriotism and antiquarianism after Scott, (1832-91)
2019 – Material Spirits: Objects, Past and Landscape in Contemporary Scottish Whisky
2019 – Dress and the individual in medieval Scotland, 1200–1600
2018 – The Cold War in Scotland: Technology, Heritage and the British Warfare State
2018 – Understanding colour in Renaissance embroidery: new analytical approaches
2018 – Democratising Knowledge: Chambers' Illustrated Encyclopedia 1860-1892
2017 – Typewriters and Commerce in Scotland, 1870s-1920s
2017 – The Material Culture of Mass Politics in Scotland, c. 1815 - c. 1914
2017 – Intellectual Properties: Transferring Science from Universities to National Museums Scotland
Identities and Cultural Contacts
Sustainability
2021 – Ovipositor of sawflies for the design and manufacture of enhanced surgical tools
2019 – Big Cat Biogeography, Morphology, and Climate Change
2019 – Insect response to environmental perturbation during the end Triassic mass extinction
2018 – Thalattosuchia: neurosensory development during a land-to-water evolutionary transition