Faculty of Arts and Humanities Bursary Hub
Welcome to the Arts and Humanities Bursary Information Hub!
Here you will find information about bursaries that are currently administered by the Arts and Humanities Bursary Office, as well as links to other bursaries that may be relevant to students in the Arts and Humanities. We are currently updating our Bursary Hub, so do check back regularly.
The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) Language Bursary aims to promote study in language and language-related fields. For 2026, students must be studying in any three of the following areas:
- Any of the South African Official Languages (with a particular emphasis on indigenous languages),
- Human Language Technologies,
- Interpreting,
- Language Component/Theories,
- Language Planning,
- Lexicography,
- Terminology Development and Management, and
- Translation and Editing.
The bursary is available to the following UWC students:
- final-year undergraduate students (at least R20 000)
- Honours students (at least R 30 000)
- Master's students (at least R40 000)
Please note: This is a partial bursary and as such only covers study fees. It does not cover accommodation, travel allowances, living expenses, laptops, etc. The bursary will be paid into your UWC student account (not your personal bank account), should your application be successful.
The bursary is not available to:
- students who receive a rebate (e.g., child or spouse of a UWC staff member)
- students who have additional funding in excess of R30 000
- students who are not South African citizens
Please click here to apply
Applications open 27 April 2026 and close 15 May 2026. Please note that limited funding is available.
To apply please click here
The closing date for applications is 31 January 2026.
Honours applicants need to have obtained an average of at least 65% in the modules related to the Honours degree they wish to pursue.
MA applicants should have obtained at least 60% at Honours level in the relevant field.
The bursary is not available dependents of UWC staff (such as children or spouses) or those who have received other funding in excess of R20 000 (Honours) or R30 000 (MA).
Successful applicants will receive further communication from artsbursaries@uwc.ac.za by or after 06 February 2026.
If you have not received any communication regarding your application from the ARTS Bursary Office (artsbursaries@uwc.ac.za), your name will remain on the ‘pending’ list in the event more funding becomes available.
Thank you!
Please note that applications are now closed. Successful candidates were informed by 6 February 2026. If you have not received a response by that date, your name will remain on a waiting list in case funding becomes available.
Here you will find information about bursaries that are currently administered by the Arts and Humanities Bursary Office, as well as links to other bursaries that may be relevant to students in the Arts and Humanities. We are currently updating our Bursary Hub, so do check back regularly.
TELL ME MORE!
Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC): Language Bursary
The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) Language Bursary aims to promote study in language and language-related fields. For 2026, students must be studying in any three of the following areas:
- Any of the South African Official Languages (with a particular emphasis on indigenous languages),
- Human Language Technologies,
- Interpreting,
- Language Component/Theories,
- Language Planning,
- Lexicography,
- Terminology Development and Management, and
- Translation and Editing.
The bursary is available to the following UWC students:
- final-year undergraduate students (at least R20 000)
- Honours students (at least R 30 000)
- Master's students (at least R40 000)
Please note: This is a partial bursary and as such only covers study fees. It does not cover accommodation, travel allowances, living expenses, laptops, etc. The bursary will be paid into your UWC student account (not your personal bank account), should your application be successful.
The bursary is not available to:
- students who receive a rebate (e.g., child or spouse of a UWC staff member)
- students who have additional funding in excess of R30 000
- students who are not South African citizens
Please click here to apply
Applications open 27 April 2026 and close 15 May 2026. Please note that limited funding is available.
Funding is available for currently registered PhD students to attend an international or local conference. (We may extend to MA and Honours students who will be attending and presenting at conferences with their supervisors).
• A limited number of awards is available and applications will be considered on a first come first served basis.
• Awards are capped at R15 000. (Additional funds to be sourced by the applicant, and may come from other travel grants, scholarships and awards, where the rules for those awards allow. Please note that R15 000 is the maximum that may be awarded, regardless of the circumstance, and that the award administrator will manage travel and other arrangements.)
• You may only receive the DVC PhD Conference funding once.
Please include the following as your application portfolio:
1. A motivational letter from your supervisor
2. A budget breakdown, including proof of requested costs
3. Proof of acceptance of paper
The above documents, which will serve as the candidate’s application, should please be COMBINED into one document and forwarded to gnaidoo@uwc.ac.za with the email subject line “DVC PhD Conference Presentation Award”.
Should funding be awarded, then the following will be required:
1. A report on the conference and the presentation should be submitted two weeks post-conference
2. The conference paper should be submitted for publication within three months of presentation, preferably to a DHET-accredited journal. The following acknowledgement needs to be made on the publication:
"This publication is based on research funded by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (DVC) Research of the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author, and the DVC UWC accepts no liability in this regard."
There is no deadline, but please email Mrs Naidoo in advance before putting in an application to make sure the remaining funds have not yet been allocated.
• A limited number of awards is available and applications will be considered on a first come first served basis.
• Awards are capped at R15 000. (Additional funds to be sourced by the applicant, and may come from other travel grants, scholarships and awards, where the rules for those awards allow. Please note that R15 000 is the maximum that may be awarded, regardless of the circumstance, and that the award administrator will manage travel and other arrangements.)
• You may only receive the DVC PhD Conference funding once.
Please include the following as your application portfolio:
1. A motivational letter from your supervisor
2. A budget breakdown, including proof of requested costs
3. Proof of acceptance of paper
The above documents, which will serve as the candidate’s application, should please be COMBINED into one document and forwarded to gnaidoo@uwc.ac.za with the email subject line “DVC PhD Conference Presentation Award”.
Should funding be awarded, then the following will be required:
1. A report on the conference and the presentation should be submitted two weeks post-conference
2. The conference paper should be submitted for publication within three months of presentation, preferably to a DHET-accredited journal. The following acknowledgement needs to be made on the publication:
"This publication is based on research funded by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (DVC) Research of the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author, and the DVC UWC accepts no liability in this regard."
There is no deadline, but please email Mrs Naidoo in advance before putting in an application to make sure the remaining funds have not yet been allocated.
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of the Western Cape is pleased to announce the UWC DVC Postdoctoral Fellowship in any supported discipline in the faculty. The 2026 fellowship is valued at R240 000, and the awardee would have to register with UWC before 30 April 2026, for the 2026 study year.
Eligibility
• 80% South African, 20% foreign nationals
• Preferably black and/or women
• A PhD obtained in 2021 or later
Application
The following documents are required for the application:
1. Letter of motivation, indicating discipline, research interest, and department or centre of affiliation. Please explore the options using the links below for departments in the faculty, the Centre for the Advanced Study of African Societies (CASAS) the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR), the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR), and the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice (DTC):
• study/faculties-and-programmes/faculty-of-arts-and- humanities/overview
• study/all-areas-of-study/centres/centre-for-advanced- studies-of-african-society/overview
• https://www.chrflagship.uwc.ac.za/ study/all-areas-ofstudy/centres/centre-for- multilingualism-and-diversities-research/overview
• study/all-areas-of-study/centres/desmond-tutu- centrefor-religion-and-social-justice/overview
2. CV
3. A reference, preferably from the PhD supervisor(s) indicating suitability for postdoctoral research
4. Academic transcripts
5. Certified copies of degree certificates
6. Certified copy of ID or passport
The above documents, which will serve as the candidate’s application, should please be COMBINED into one document and forwarded by the due date to gnaidoo@uwc.ac.za ,with the subject line UWC DVC Postdoctoral Fellowship 2026.
Deadline for Applications: 15 March 2026
Deadline for Registration: 30 April 2026
Period of Tenure: The 2026 Academic Year
Deliverables
• Participation in the research and academic activities of the department or centre.
• At least three submissions to accredited journals by the end of the 2026 academic year.
Eligibility
• 80% South African, 20% foreign nationals
• Preferably black and/or women
• A PhD obtained in 2021 or later
Application
The following documents are required for the application:
1. Letter of motivation, indicating discipline, research interest, and department or centre of affiliation. Please explore the options using the links below for departments in the faculty, the Centre for the Advanced Study of African Societies (CASAS) the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR), the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR), and the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice (DTC):
• study/faculties-and-programmes/faculty-of-arts-and- humanities/overview
• study/all-areas-of-study/centres/centre-for-advanced- studies-of-african-society/overview
• https://www.chrflagship.uwc.ac.za/ study/all-areas-ofstudy/centres/centre-for- multilingualism-and-diversities-research/overview
• study/all-areas-of-study/centres/desmond-tutu- centrefor-religion-and-social-justice/overview
2. CV
3. A reference, preferably from the PhD supervisor(s) indicating suitability for postdoctoral research
4. Academic transcripts
5. Certified copies of degree certificates
6. Certified copy of ID or passport
The above documents, which will serve as the candidate’s application, should please be COMBINED into one document and forwarded by the due date to gnaidoo@uwc.ac.za ,with the subject line UWC DVC Postdoctoral Fellowship 2026.
Deadline for Applications: 15 March 2026
Deadline for Registration: 30 April 2026
Period of Tenure: The 2026 Academic Year
Deliverables
• Participation in the research and academic activities of the department or centre.
• At least three submissions to accredited journals by the end of the 2026 academic year.
Call for Applications for 2025 DVC Research and Innovation Postgraduate Bursary (Arts and Humanities Faculty)
The aim of the DVC: Research and Innovation Postgraduate Bursary is to promote postgraduate study, specifically at Honours and Masters level, at UWC. In the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, partial bursaries are offered in the follow fields:
- African Language Studies
- Afrikaans en Nederlands
- Anthropology
- Arabic
- English
- Ethics
- French
- German
- Geography, Environmental Studies and Tourism
- Historical Studies
- Library and Information Studies
- Linguistics
- Philosophy
- Religion and Theology
- Sociology
- Women's and Gender Studies
To apply please click here
The closing date for applications is 31 January 2026.
WHO CAN APPLY FOR THE DVC: RESEARCH AND INNOVATION BURSARY?
The bursary is available to all students who are considering an Honours or Masters degree in the above mentioned Arts and Humanities fields.Honours applicants need to have obtained an average of at least 65% in the modules related to the Honours degree they wish to pursue.
MA applicants should have obtained at least 60% at Honours level in the relevant field.
The bursary is not available dependents of UWC staff (such as children or spouses) or those who have received other funding in excess of R20 000 (Honours) or R30 000 (MA).
WHAT IS THE AMOUNT?
The bursary amount is R15 000 for full-time Honours students and R15 000 for full-time MA students; it is half for part-time students.OUTCOME
Successful applicants will be cleared financially to register (but will still have to pay the minimum registration amount of R1810.00).Successful applicants will receive further communication from artsbursaries@uwc.ac.za by or after 06 February 2026.
If you have not received any communication regarding your application from the ARTS Bursary Office (artsbursaries@uwc.ac.za), your name will remain on the ‘pending’ list in the event more funding becomes available.
Thank you!
Please note that applications are now closed. Successful candidates were informed by 6 February 2026. If you have not received a response by that date, your name will remain on a waiting list in case funding becomes available.
DSTI-NRF SARChI CHAIR IN BLUE HUMANITIES AND GENDER JUSTICE: THINKING WITH WATER FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE POSTGRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS CALL FOR APPLICATIONS : 1 Year Renewable The Blue Humanities is a cutting-edge field which critically examines the planet’s troubled bodies of water through diverse perspectives, including literary, aesthetic, historical, ethical, amonst others (Mentz, 2024; Oppermann, 2023a, 2023b). Feminist scholars have also increasingly been ‘thinking with water,’ notably through a burgeoning body of hydrofeminist work (Neimanis, 2013, 2017a, 2017b; Shefer et al, 2024) which draws on ecofeminist, decolonial, indigenous, new materialist and posthumanist feminisms. Neimanis, who coined the term hydrofeminism, reminds us that we “reside within and as part of a fragile global hydrocommons, where water – the lifeblood of humans and all other bodies on this planet – is increasingly contaminated, commodified and dangerously reorganised” (Neimanis, 2013, pp. 27-28). Oceans and bodies of water are thus political spaces, conduits for settler colonialism, land (dis)possession, slavery, transnational labour exploitation, extractivism, extinctions, omnicides, and more (Ghosh, 2021; McKittrick, 2006; Sharpe, 2016). Oceans in South Africa hold a specific history of trauma, haunted by the ghosts of centuries of (hydro)colonisation (Hofmeyr, 2019), and decades of apartheid, which negatively impacted on many communities’ access to oceans, as well as livelihoods, that bleed into the present (Shefer, 2021; Shefer & Bozalek, 2022; Shefer et al., 2024). South Africa currently faces the ominous impacts of extractivist oceanic mining, overfishing, sewage spillage, industry pollution, and other invasive and toxic practices (Green, 2020; McGarry, 2024; Petrik et al., 2017), devastating the livelihoods and well-being of humans, other species and the living oceans and beaches. This is also gendered, in that women often are impacted more harshly, and frequently excluded from decision-making, even though they may have important knowledges (Francis & McGarry, 2024). In the face of these global and local ecological challenges, there is a strong plea for a radical rethinking of what it is to be human, and calls for alternative ethics of living with each other and the planet. Feminists, critical scholars and activists are increasingly turning to relational ontologies, an alternative ethics also foundational to many indigenous cosmologies, which will shape this project. The chair aims to bring together and generate further a range of diverse feminist-informed scholarship, activism and arts that engage with oceans and bodies of water for knowledge production and advocacy for social and environmental justice (Boon et al., 2018; Chen et al., .2013; Christian & Wong, 2017; Ingersoll, 2016; Jue, 2020; Neimanis, 2013, 2017a, 2017b; Probyn, 2016; Wong, 2013). The main question to be pursued is: How might engagements with oceans, other watery spaces, and liminal spaces such as beaches, contribute to critical scholarship challenging global injustices, and problematic practices, past, present and future, that are evident in oceans and other watery spaces? The Blue Humanities and Gender Justice Chair brings together transdisciplinary, transnational and transmodal research on the entanglements of intersectional gender inequalities with environmental challenges and crises, through thinking with and engaging with oceans, bodies of water and other fluidities. Further, it will flag efforts to resist and reconceptualise current problematic ecologies of living, through water and oceans. The Chair will actively pursue ecofeminist, hydrofeminist Blue Humanities scholarship that foregrounds the way in which intersectional gender justice concerns are entangled with environmental crises, and generate knowledges, scholarly, activist and artistic, contributing to both university-based and public pedagogies and consciousness-raising, while promoting responsibility for revisioning ways of living on a ‘damaged planet.’ The Chair will host a cohort of postgraduate and postdoctoral scholars, with emphasis on publications and forums, academic and popular, outreach, policy briefs, community art works and exhibitions, and popular media, such as documentary film, podcasts and online blogs. HONOURS, MASTERS AND PHD BURSARIES WILL BE AWARDED ON AN ANNUAL BASIS, RENEWABLE, AT THE NRF RATES. Applicants should submit the following to Tamara Shefer tshefer@uwc.ac.za and Janine Hannibal jhannibal@uwc.ac.za - a cover letter - transcripts - full CV - short overview of research plan for their research and - an example of written work Deadline: ASAP or by 13 February 2026 latest.
The Department of Anthropology from the University of the Western Cape is offering a post-doc position for 24 months with a thematic focus on social justice, environmental politics and socio-ecological transformation, as part of the research project Transforming environmental governance in the Anthropocene: an action research in the field of Access and Benefit-Sharing (TEGA).
The TEGA project was launched in July 2024 by an international team of scholars from several disciplines and research institutions (University of the Western Cape; University of Namibia; University of Bonn; Helmholtz- Centre for Environmental Research). Together with actors directly concerned by the Access and Benefit-Sharing regime put in place under the Nagoya Protocol of 2010 (e.g. policy makers, companies, community leaders, NGOs), our team combines social theory and empirical research with the agency of non-academic actors to
The TEGA project was launched in July 2024 by an international team of scholars from several disciplines and research institutions (University of the Western Cape; University of Namibia; University of Bonn; Helmholtz- Centre for Environmental Research). Together with actors directly concerned by the Access and Benefit-Sharing regime put in place under the Nagoya Protocol of 2010 (e.g. policy makers, companies, community leaders, NGOs), our team combines social theory and empirical research with the agency of non-academic actors to
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities is a proud partner of the European Union-funded TESIECS project. The call for scholarships at two of the other partner institutions is now open. The University of Zimbabwe and University of Botswana academic years begin in September. These institutions are now offering a number of full degree and short courses to UWC students. (See below.) UWC will offer courses to students at the partner institutions when our academic year begins in 2025.
The National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) extends scholarships to 150 full-time PhD students annually. Their aim is to promote scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences and to address inequities in these fields. For more information, please consult their website: https://www.nihss.ac.za/doctoral-scholarships-programmes
The National Research Foundation (NRF) makes a number of scholarships available to postgraduate students each year. Please consult their website (https://www.nrf.ac.za/nrf-for-post-graduate-students/bursaries-scholarships/) regularly to see when you can apply for a bursary/scholarship.
