Around 15 awards a year against more than 1,500 applications. Oxford publishes the success rate plainly: roughly 1.5% for Master's candidates and 1.3% for doctoral candidates.
For those few, the package is complete. Course fees in full, an annual living grant of £21,805 for 2026-27, and dedicated use of Ertegun House, which gives each scholar space for writing and research plus a programme of lectures, performances and social occasions built for the cohort. Students from all countries and all backgrounds may apply, UK students included.
Eligibility turns entirely on the course. It must be administered by Oxford's Humanities Division, and the faculties are listed precisely, from Classics and Music to Philosophy, Theology and a set of interdisciplinary degrees. A small group of Global and Area Studies and Social Sciences courses is carved in, mostly the Japanese, Chinese, South Asian and Middle Eastern studies degrees and Classical Archaeology. Part-time courses are out. The University's application portal lists every scholarship without checking course eligibility, so the eligible course list is the one to read.
Two rules narrow the field further. The award cannot be held alongside any other, and it is only for someone starting a new full-time course, so it cannot extend funding into a second or third year of a degree already under way.
The supporting statement decides whether the application exists at all. It answers three questions about the aims of the programme, uploads as a PDF with the graduate application form, and without it the application cannot be reviewed. Where a course has an early deadline, Oxford allows a placeholder statement saying the full version will follow by the January deadline.
That January deadline governs regardless of the course. A Humanities course with a later admissions deadline still requires the application to be in by early January to be considered.
The Ertegun scholarship pages were checked on 16 September 2026.