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Please read this letter carefully. If you support our request, please enter your details in the form below.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss anything please feel free to email the authors:
Luca Marinelli (l.marinelli@qmul.ac.uk)
Max Graf (max.graf@qmul.ac.uk)
Eleanor Row (e.r.v.row@qmul.ac.uk)
Radhika Thiagarajan (r.thiagarajan@qmul.ac.uk)
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Open letter to QMUL senior leadership:
The ongoing cost of living crisis has exacerbated financial inequality amongst all of us, especially for international and self-funded students, resulting in many of us being left behind and struggling to make ends meet. This situation is only bound to get worse.
Following a successful student-led campaign, UKRI announced an increase of stipend awards to £19,886 for London-based PhD students (UKRI Press Release, 2022). QMUL subsequently followed suit for internally funded PhD students. Whilst this is a welcome advancement, not all QMUL PhD students are UKRI- or internally funded and therefore may not benefit from this increase.
As UKRI- and internally funded students are in receipt of a funding increase exceeding £2000pa, the signatories of this letter express their solidarity with the PhD students who were overlooked by this measure.
The work of all PhD students should be evaluated on the same basis. However, when a multi-tiered stipend system is in place, and financial hardship (which leads to distress) is not taken into account, this necessary parity amongst PhD students ceases to exist.
Therefore, our request to QMUL senior leadership is as follows:
All PhD students at Queen Mary University of London that did not receive the stipend increase announced by UKRI on the 2nd of September 2022, should receive a one-time payment. The purpose of this payment is to uphold financial equality amongst all PhD students. This payment would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to match the UKRI stipend and would not exceed £2000, in reference to the recent UKRI increase with respect to the previous year.
Thank you for reading our letter. We look forward to receiving your response.
