UCD Ad Astra Doctoral Scholarship 2025: Authoritarian Politics

The School of Politics and International Relations (SPIRe) at University College Dublin is pleased to offer a new fully-funded Ad Astra doctoral scholarship on a subject broadly related to authoritarian politics. 

Potential study areas could include, but are not limited to: authoritarian legitimation and propaganda; disinformation; media and censorship; elite behaviour; public opinion; authoritarian diffusion and learning; democratization and autocratization; and personalist rule.

Proposed projects should be empirically grounded and theoretically and methodologically rigorous. Quantitative, computational, or mixed-method approaches are particularly encouraged, including but not limited to natural language processing, machine learning, survey experiments, and network analysis. Projects using other appropriate and innovative methodologies will also be considered. 
SPIRe is the oldest and largest school of its kind in the Republic of Ireland. According to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023, UCD School of Politics and International Relations is ranked in the top 100 in the world. It is a dynamic, growing, multi-faceted and highly-international school offering an exciting and professionally-valuable environment for academic development. Our staff are engaged in cutting-edge research across the whole spectrum of political science.   

The successful candidate will undertake a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Nikita Khokhlov, starting in September 2026.

The scholarship will provide:

• Tuition fees at up to the non-EU rate;
• A yearly stipend of €25,000; and
• An annual research budget of €4,000 for research-related expenses such as data collection, attending conferences, etc.

The scholarship is tenable for a maximum of four years, renewable each year subject to satisfactory progress. The scholarship is available on a full-time basis only.

Application process:
For further details on the scholarship and on the application requirements and process, follow the link below
https://www.ucd.ie/spire/study/prospectivephdstudents/adastradoctoralsc…