CAMHRA Masters Scholarships

The Centre for Anthropology and Mental Health Research in Action (CAMHRA) is excited to announce its 2026/2027 Masters Scholarships (MA and MRes). 

CAMHRA

As a recently launched UKRI-funded research centre, CAMHRA seeks to support outstanding applicants to pursue postgraduate study and research in the anthropology of mental health. These are fee-only scholarships, running yearly until 2028/29, with the full-time equivalent of three overseas fees and four home fees places available each year.

Established within the SOAS Department of Anthropology and Sociology, CAMHRA is a globally oriented and locally-connected hub for cutting-edge anthropological research, education, and public engagement on mental health. Working with partners across academia, statutory healthcare, and policy, and alongside service users, CAMHRA contributes distinctly anthropological perspectives to a growing global understanding of how societies can understand and respond to mental distress and build effective systems of care.

Postgraduate study aligned to CAMHRA is open to people from a wide range of professional and academic backgrounds. Our flagship MA in Medical Anthropology and Mental Health incorporates diverse perspectives from social, cultural, medical, and psychological anthropology and provides expert supervision for students to conduct original dissertation research. This degree develops critical and cross-cultural thinking about the intersections of medicine, politics, history, culture, experience, health, healing, and clinical practice.

The CAMHRA Masters scholarships are also open to applicants to the MRes Social Anthropology who propose a research topic in the anthropology of mental health. While the MA in Medical Anthropology and Mental Health is a suitable postgraduate degree to lead into doctoral study, the MRes is an explicitly research-focused masters, typically undertaken in preparation for PhD research. The MRes programme is open to those who hold a bachelor’s and/or masters degree in social/cultural anthropology or applicants with a masters in another field who wish to pursue a PhD in anthropology.

Further information about the eligible programmes, including how to apply, can be found on the MA Medical Anthropology and Mental Health and MRes Social Anthropology webpages.

CAMHRA Scholarships are designed to offer opportunities for people who would not otherwise study anthropology or ethnographic methods at postgraduate level due to existing time, financial, and social constraints. These Scholarships are also aimed to cultivate future generations of professionals, researchers, and practitioners working at the intersection of anthropology and mental health. We welcome applications from all over the world and from all corners of society. We particularly welcome applications from candidates who are currently working in or have lived experience of mental health services, and candidates from underrepresented groups in anthropology. 

In your scholarship application, you will be asked to spell out your motivations for engaging in the anthropology of mental health, the details of a proposed research topic, and how your learning from the degree may enable you to positively impact the world. You must apply separately to a masters degree and to the scholarship. It is acceptable to reuse text and reiterate aspects of your candidate profile across these forms. We would encourage you to engage with publications in the anthropology of mental health, including research conducted by academics at CAMHRA. You are strongly advised not to submit any text generated by artificial intelligence. The syntax and style are easy to identify by eye and undermine your whole application. We are interested in your authentic human qualities and writing style.

Eligible programmes 

• Full-time (1 year) or part-time (2 years) MA Medical Anthropology and Mental Health beginning in 2026/27.
• Full-time (1 year) or part-time (2 years) MRes Social Anthropology starting in 2026/27.

Candidate criteria 

The scholarship is open to UK and Overseas applicants. Applicants:

• For the scholarship for MA Medical Anthropology and Mental Health must hold a minimum 2:1 bachelor’s degree in a social science or humanities subject; OR in health sciences including medicine, psychology, nursing, social work.
• For MRes Social Anthropology must hold a minimum 2:1 bachelor’s or masters degree. Applicants without a prior degree in anthropology must have a prior masters in another field.
• Must have a strong idea for a research project that uses ethnographic methods to understand an issue related to mental health.

Scholarship applicants must have submitted their application to the MA or MRes programme at SOAS, but are not required to have received an offer of admission by the scholarship deadline. Please note that this scholarship does not cover funding for pre-sessional courses.

Candidate assessment 

Candidates will be assessed by the Selection Panel based on their academic merit, research proposal, personal statement, responses to the scholarship application prompts, and considerations of equality, diversity, and inclusion. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to interview.

Notification of results

The scholarship shortlisting and awarding period is expected to be completed by the end of July 2026. Successful candidates will be contacted first and once all awards have been allocated, unsuccessful candidates will be notified.

Webinar

Members of the CAMHRA team will share information about the MA Medical Anthropology and Mental Health and how to build a strong application to the CAMHRA Masters Scholarships. Join us on Tuesday 31 March at 2:00pm British Summer Time. Please register here.