Access · Progression · Completion
Helping students find a financial route into postgraduate study — and the support to stay there.
A subscription to the Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding empowers current and prospective students to access an overlooked funding stream: charities and trusts. These philanthropic bodies often support students from lower-income and underrepresented backgrounds.
Discuss a licence
A searchable funding database, backed by comprehensive application guidance.
Support for students taking the next step and those already on their courses.
Statistics each year to help your institution review engagement with the Guide.
The postgraduate participation gap
Widening participation is firmly established at undergraduate level. Yet support for postgraduate progression and completion remains much less developed.
Postgraduate fees and living costs can be formidable. Loans often leave substantial gaps, full scholarships are scarce, and dedicated widening participation schemes are harder to find. For students without personal savings or family support, the next step can feel financially out of reach.
The same barriers affect students already on their courses. A funding shortfall can threaten progress, research or completion, particularly for self-funded and partially funded postgraduates.
Introducing the Alternative Guide
The Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding combines a searchable database of 1,200 charities and trusts with comprehensive guidance on approaching them and applying for support.
These often obscure funders are underutilised by students, many of whom are unaware they exist. Charities and trusts frequently support education, social mobility and advancement despite financial disadvantage. Eligibility may reflect financial need, personal circumstances, local connections, family history, religion, gender or other aspects of a student’s background.
The Guide turns these possibilities into practical funding searches and convincing applications that can secure thousands of pounds—helping prospective students access postgraduate study and current students avoid dropping out.
Search for charities and trusts whose criteria match the student, their course and the costs they need to meet.
Learn how to explain academic ambitions, financial circumstances and the difference a grant would make.
Plan applications and budgets, and consider how several awards could contribute towards a funding gap.
One resource, two stages of support
01 / Postgraduate progression
Give final-year undergraduates considering a master’s degree, master’s students looking towards a PhD, and prospective students a practical way to explore how they could fund their next course.
The Guide helps them identify opportunities, assess potential shortfalls and begin preparing applications as they plan their progression.
A resource to share through widening participation teams, careers services and postgraduate recruitment.
02 / Postgraduate completion
Support existing postgraduates, particularly PGRs, who are self-funded, partially funded or approaching the end of their existing support.
Students can search for help with fees, maintenance, research, fieldwork, travel, conferences or writing-up costs — building towards the funding they need to continue and complete.
A practical addition to Graduate School, doctoral college and student support provision.
Institutional access
Make the Alternative Guide available across your university, or focus access on the cohorts you want to support. We can discuss the scope and cost around your institution’s needs.
University-wide access
Make the Guide available to all departments, students and staff across your university.
This supports a coordinated approach to postgraduate funding, giving current and prospective students a resource to use themselves and staff a shared tool for advice and referrals.
Focused support · Lower cost
Lower-cost licences can focus on particular cohorts, such as final-year undergraduates, postgraduate offer-holders or a group of current PGRs.
We can discuss the students you want to reach, the access arrangements and a suitable quotation for your programme.
We provide usage statistics each year, helping you review engagement and plan how to promote the Guide to the students who could benefit.
Student success stories
Our Student Stories archive shares the experiences of master’s and PhD students who have won charitable funding, including students who began with partial funding or none at all.
Share these stories with your students to make an unfamiliar funding route more tangible and show how others approached it.
Explore the student story archiveAlongside the online resource
Our sessions introduce postgraduate funding in an accessible, practical way, with separate approaches for progression and completion.
Combine the Guide with a workshop or talk to help students get started and apply what they learn.
Explore workshops and talksTell us about your institution, your students and whether you are considering university-wide or targeted access. We’ll discuss the options and provide a quotation.