The Blavatnik School of Government, together with Wolfson College, is pleased to announce a scholarship to work under the supervision of Professor Jonathan Wolff, Dr Maya Tudor, Professor Dapo Akande, Professor Chris Stone, Dr Thomas Simpson, and/or other Blavatnik School faculty members on the themes of democracy and minority rights.

The scholarship covers full tuition fees and a stipend for living expenses for students of any nationality enrolled in the DPhil programme at the Blavatnik School. The scholarship is made possible through the Alfred Landecker Programme, which in turn is generously supported by the Alfred Landecker Foundation. The successful candidate will also benefit from membership of Wolfson College.

Wolfson College is one of the University of Oxford’s largest graduate colleges and is truly unique in its academic scope and international reach. Founded in 1966 by the philosopher and historian of ideas, Sir Isaiah Berlin, Wolfson is committed to sharing knowledge, inspiring change, and continuing to explore the human condition. The College motto, ‘Humani nil alienum’ – “nothing to do with human beings is foreign to me” – expresses our ideal for intellectual curiosity in the betterment of the human condition.

The project

The Alfred Landecker Programme aims to advance the goals of the Alfred Landecker Foundation, by drawing on lessons from the Holocaust and the collapse of European civilisation in the 1930s, and applying them to leadership today.

The overall aim of the programme is to draw upon cutting-edge research across disciplines to understand how the rights and interests of vulnerable people and groups are under threat through the overreach of authority and other threats to the rule of law, and to recommend and advocate for policies that strike the right balance between the protection of the most vulnerable and the celebration of distinct national cultures, in a way that benefits the integrity of democratic institutions. The Programme is mindful of the fate of Alfred Landecker himself, who like so many Jewish people, was murdered as a result of unchecked Nazi anti-Semitism.

We are especially interested in supporting work that combines a deep theoretical engagement on the themes of the programme with a concern for public policy. We anticipate that public engagement will be a natural part of the programme of activity undertaken by the scholar.

The candidate

Applicants will be assessed through the regular DPhil application process of the Blavatnik School. Please make clear in your DPhil application that you wish to be considered for the Alfred Landecker Programme scholarship. We welcome outstanding applicants from any discipline that can support the aims of the project, and are prepared to consider applications from philosophy, political theory, political science, social science, law and other relevant disciplines. Students are ordinarily only accepted to the Blavatnik School DPhil programme if they already possess a research master’s degree or equivalent training. For any questions, please contact the admissions team. The deadline for applications is the early January University deadline.