preferential trade agreements | Scholarship for Nigerians and Africans

International PhD Scholarship at School of Social Work, UK: Economic Impacts of EU’s Preferential Trade Agreements on Developing Countries

Applications are invited for a full-time scholarship available in the School of Social Work. The scholarship is tenable for up to 3 years for a PhD (via MPhil route) [subject to satisfactory progress] and is open to international applicants only. UK/EU applicants are not eligible to apply. The scholarship will provide £15000 towards the cost of the International tuition fee over 3 years. The project is part of an international collaborative study of Children’s Commissioners and Ombudsmen, or ‘independent children’s rights institutions’, directed by Professor Thomas with colleagues in Switzerland and the United States (the Research Group on Ombudspersons for Children – RGOC). The international study is focused on how models of independent children’s rights institutions map onto different national contexts, on criteria for independence, and on ways of measuring impact. This particular project will be looking at the latter question.
The aim is to develop methods and instruments for assessing the impact of independent children’s rights institutions on children’s lives, on policies for children and young people, on societal attitudes to children and on children’s participation in society. The research student will be invited to complete a thorough review of the relevant literature, and then to conduct an empirical enquiry, targeted on one or more independent children’s rights institutions, which will be designed to explore and test the reliability and validity of different approaches to measuring impact.

Scholarship Application Deadline: 13 May 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application

International PhD Scholarship at Lancashire Business School, UK

Applications are invited for a full-time scholarship available in the Lancashire Business School. The scholarship is tenable for up to 3 years for a PhD (via MPhil route) [subject to satisfactory progress] and is open to international applicants only. UK/EU applicants are not eligible to apply. The scholarship will provide £15000 towards the cost of the International tuition fee over 3 years. The aim of this PhD project is to analyse economic impacts of preferential trade agreements between the EU and the chosen developing countries. GLOBE computable general equilibrium model and the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) representation of Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database will be used to simulate various trade liberalisation scenarios, depending on the contents of the preferential trade agreements. The main focus will be on economic effects of such preferential trade agreements on developing economies. Depending on the applicant’s research interests, developing countries chosen can either be i-)Latin American, ii-) African or Asian economies. When deciding about the developing countries, the student needs to make sure that they are in Global Trade Analysis Project’s (GTAP) database, which is the main database that will be used for this project. Applicants will need to justify their choice of developing countries during the application and interview processes. They will produce a research proposal of not more than 2,000 words that outline and justify the proposed research question, identify any additional data requirements and detail the proposed work programme.


Scholarship Application Deadline: 13 May 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application