Accounting and Finance

PhD

  • Entry year 2025 or 2024
  • Duration Full time 4 - 5 years

Overview

The Department of Accounting and Finance at Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) invites applications for PhD programme in Accounting and Finance. You will work alongside world-leading academics in a busy, exciting, and innovative department.

We are looking for highly motivated candidates who have an excellent first degree and outstanding Master's level degree performance. Qualifications should be in a related discipline to your intended PhD studies. You should also be committed to pursuing an academic career. We are offering full-time studentships to commence in October 2025. All studentships pay a generous living allowance (the 2024 ESRC award was £19,237 per annum) and offer a fee waiver for four years.

The department offers an excellent research environment, with a high level of collegiality, subscriptions to state-of-the-art databases, a strong seminar series, and a senior visitors programme. The Department of Accounting and Finance is one of the largest departments within LUMS – a world-ranked international business school that is highly regarded by the Financial Times, QS, The Economist and more. In the 2014 and 2021 Research Excellence Framework, LUMS was ranked first in the UK in research power and is one of few business schools whose programmes are accredited by the three major international business school accreditation bodies: AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB.

The Department offers a PhD Program in Accounting and Finance. PhD students are required to complete a portfolio of PhD-level courses and seminars covering finance theory, econometric and statistical methods, and research methodology. Upon successfully completing the coursework, you will research and write a thesis on a topic you are passionate about. Two subject experts will offer detailed supervision to ensure it will contribute new knowledge to the academic community. You will also have the opportunity to gain international experience by visiting a leading US/European school with expertise in a relevant research area. We offer an excellent environment for PhD studies, including dedicated office space, generous funding of conference and research visits, access to many specialised databases, as well as scientific computing facilities and IT support.

The Department has been consistently building the strength of a doctoral programme for many years. It has developed comprehensive PhD training to enable our PhD graduates to succeed in the job market. Apart from training delivered by our own excellent faculty, our department regularly invites distinguished visiting professors from the best universities in the world to deliver doctoral tutorials on specialised research topics. Our PhD students have the privilege of being trained by world-leading scholars every summer and have extensive opportunities to consult external experts.

In recent years, our PhD graduates have successfully joined many excellent universities, research centres and institutions, including the Australian National University, Bocconi University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Durham, LSE, Liverpool, Maastricht, Manchester, Monash, Oxford, and Warwick Universities.

Entry requirements

Academic requirements

A relevant Master's degree (UK or equivalent) with distinction-level performance, both overall and in the dissertation. In exceptional circumstances, applicants with an upper second-class honours degree and relevant research experience may be considered.

If you have studied outside of the UK, we would advise you to check our list of international qualifications before submitting your application.

Additional requirements

As part of your application you will also need to provide a viable research proposal of up to 5000 words which has potential to make a significant contribution to prior literature. Guidance can be found on our writing a research proposal webpage.

English language requirements

We may ask you to provide a recognised English language qualification, dependent upon your nationality and where you have studied previously.

We normally require an IELTS (Academic) Test with an overall score of at least 7.5 and a minimum of 6.0 in each element of the test. We also consider other English language qualifications.

If your score is below our requirements, you may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English language programmes.

Contact: Admissions Team +44 (0) 1524 592032 or email pgadmissions@lancaster.ac.uk

Pre-master’s programmes

Delivered in partnership with INTO Lancaster University, our one-year tailored pre-master’s pathways are designed to improve your subject knowledge and English language skills to the level required by a range of Lancaster University master’s degrees. Visit the INTO Lancaster University website for more details and a list of eligible degrees you can progress onto.

Course structure

You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research. Not all optional modules are available every year.

Core

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Optional

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Fees and funding

The tuition fee for students with home fee status is set in line with the standard fee stipend provided by the UK Research Councils. The fee stipend for 2025/26 has not yet been set. For reference, the fee stipend for 2024/25 was full-time £4,786.

The international fee for new entrants in 2025/26 is full-time £21,620.

General fees and funding information

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Scholarships and bursaries

You may be eligible for the following funding opportunities, depending on your fee status and course. You will be automatically considered for our main scholarships and bursaries when you apply, so there's nothing extra that you need to do.

Unfortunately no scholarships and bursaries match your selection, but there are more listed on scholarships and bursaries page.

If you're considering postgraduate research you should look at our funded PhD opportunities.

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We also have other, more specialised scholarships and bursaries - such as those for students from specific countries.

Browse Lancaster University's scholarships and bursaries.

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Important Information

The information on this site relates primarily to 2025/2026 entry to the University and every effort has been taken to ensure the information is correct at the time of publication.

The University will use all reasonable effort to deliver the courses as described, but the University reserves the right to make changes to advertised courses. In exceptional circumstances that are beyond the University’s reasonable control (Force Majeure Events), we may need to amend the programmes and provision advertised. In this event, the University will take reasonable steps to minimise the disruption to your studies. If a course is withdrawn or if there are any fundamental changes to your course, we will give you reasonable notice and you will be entitled to request that you are considered for an alternative course or withdraw your application. You are advised to revisit our website for up-to-date course information before you submit your application.

More information on limits to the University’s liability can be found in our legal information.

Our Students’ Charter

We believe in the importance of a strong and productive partnership between our students and staff. In order to ensure your time at Lancaster is a positive experience we have worked with the Students’ Union to articulate this relationship and the standards to which the University and its students aspire. View our Charter and other policies.