Unmissable benefits: A qualitative study of the personal value of humanities doctoral education for graduates

Abstract

The humanities PhD is undergoing extraordinary change. Against this backdrop, this article argues that humanities doctoral education should be structured, supported and evaluated in ways that recognise its differences from other fields. It shares the findings of a qualitative survey of 60 humanities graduates from British and Irish universities who reflected on the value of their doctorates to various areas of life since graduation. Employing reflexive thematic analysis, the article explores the intense ambivalence with which graduates perceive this value. While describing known financial and emotional costs, participants articulate unmissable benefits connected to the situated form of knowledge creation distinct to the humanities: meaningful relationships, self-fulfilment and an enhanced capacity to interpret the world. This addresses gaps in scholarship by indicating what is unique about humanities doctorates. Through drawing on the findings, the article recommends strategies for funders, institutions and researchers to promote humanities doctoral experiences of high personal value.

Introduction

The landscape of humanities doctoral study is undergoing extraordinary change. Globally, drastic reductions in public funding for the humanities and increased attention on the rights and conditions of doctoral researchers are leading funders and institutions to implement changes that affect the very nature of the humanities PhD. Against this backdrop, this article strengthens the argument that doctoral education in the humanities needs to be structured, supported and evaluated in ways that recognise its differences from other fields (Crabtree, 2026; Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024; Nuriler et al., 2025). It does this by sharing the findings of a qualitative survey of 60 participants who identified that they had completed doctorates at British and Irish universities in the field of Languages, Cultures and Societies. ¹ Referring to research and teaching that links specialist knowledge of the language(s) spoken in a given area with cultural and social concerns (Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, nd), this field exemplifies the concern for specific contexts that distinguishes the humanities from other fields (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024). The survey collected participants’ reflections about the value of their doctoral experiences to different areas of life since graduation: career, skills, social networks and how they see themselves. Their reflections indicate ways in which humanities doctorates bring unmissable benefits that are grounded in the field’s distinct situated form of knowledge creation (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024).

The article begins by outlining recent shifts in humanities doctoral education in response to funding pressures in the UK and Ireland. The study is situated in these contexts but since these shifts reflect global trends (Sarpong, 2025), interest in its findings will be shared by humanities researchers and educators internationally. It then overviews what is known about humanities doctoral graduates in the existing scholarship. Subsequently, the methods are outlined and the participant sample described. The findings are shared through four themes that encapsulate participants’ reflections on the personal value of their doctorates: “a double-edged sword”, “meaningful relationships”, “self-fulfilment” and “enhanced capacity to interpret the world”. The article concludes by highlighting implications for future scholarship, doctoral funding policies and researcher development practices.

Humanities doctoral education in the UK and Ireland

Over the last decade publicly-funded doctoral education in the UK has seen major restructuring. Since the introduction of Doctoral Training Programmes in 2014, core funding has moved away from the past standard of individual grants in the name of the postgraduate researcher (PGR). Funding is now administered through block grants to universities and non-higher education institutions which collaborate to deliver cohort-based programmes. In 2025, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) announced further restructuring of their provision (AHRC, 2025). This responded to a dramatic reduction in their allocation of public funding via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and to the increased costs connected to UKRI’s commitments to improve the conditions and accessibility of postgraduate research (UKRI, 2023). AHRC’s announcements include not only reductions in funded studentships but forms of funding that depart from standard practices in humanities researcher education. A higher proportion of funding will go to challenge-led doctorates named “Focal Awards” where applicants apply to projects identified by an academic and in alignment with themes deemed “strategically valuable” by the council (AHRC, 2025). Funding for PGR-initiated projects will fall by 60% (Grove, 2025a). This shift appears to reflect top-down pressures to standardise public research funding so that disciplines organise research activities following processes established in the sciences (Grove, 2025b). Even though AHRC only funds one in six humanities doctorates in the UK, it plays a leading role in modelling the gold-standard support mechanisms for humanities postgraduate research in the UK and further afield (AHRC, 2022a). These changes have not been seen in Ireland where appreciation of the arts and humanities is considered higher than in the UK (Mahon and Darling, 2024). Publicly funded doctoral education continues to be allocated through individual grants for PGR-led projects (Research Ireland, 2025). However, the recent merging of two research agencies into Taighde Éireann (Research Ireland) has raised concern about increased science-led standardisation in future (Mahon and Darling, 2024).

The participants in this study have a median time of 8 years since graduation, meaning that their doctoral experiences were characterised by the past standard of PGR applying with their own topics. By presenting data from individuals who have completed these doctorates, this article contributes to existing knowledge about the emotionally challenging yet transformative processes known to characterise humanities researcher education that takes this form (Crabtree, 2026; Guerin, 2020; Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024; Nuriler et al., 2025). Exploring this data in the current context indicates what may be at stake in the standardisation of humanities doctoral education.

Review of literature

Despite intense interest on the impact of doctoral education in recent decades, scholarly research about the personal value of humanities doctoral study is limited. Against rising scrutiny on the return of publicly funded doctoral education, many studies concentrate on personal impact through the lens of employability and career outcomes. It has been increasingly recognised that a high proportion of doctoral graduates move into employment outside of academia and this raises concerns about how relevant doctoral training is to these career paths. As recently highlighted (Skakni et al., 2026), most studies about the employment of doctoral graduates beyond academia focus on graduates from STEM, and social sciences are also well covered (Hancock, 2019; Hancock and Walsh, 2016; McAlpine, 2016; McAlpine et al., 2021; McAlpine and Amundsen, 2018; Pedersen, 2014). When humanities participants are studied, they are often a small proportion of the total sample (Hancock, 2021, 2023) or studied in groups together with social science graduates (Barnacle et al., 2020; Guccione and Bryan, 2023; Guerin, 2020; Marini, 2019; McAlpine and Castelló, 2024; McAlpine et al., 2021; Spronken-Smith et al., 2024; Skakni et al., 2022) often using acronyms such as Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS). In these studies, grouping humanities and social science graduates together may reflect the interdisciplinarity of some projects. Yet humanities knowledge practices - and therefore doctoral and graduate experiences - are distinct from other disciplinary fields. Whereas knowledge practices based on quantification (such as in STEM) or concerned with generalisability (such as in social sciences) require the elision of unnecessary context, concern for specific contexts through the situated lens of the researcher is the “lifeblood” of the humanities (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024: 4). Looking at the world through this perspective supports humanities scholarship to hold onto the darkness of complexity and is most compelling when asking questions rather than providing solutions (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024). Humanities PGR represent a minority of the total PGR population, which explains limited perspectives on them in the literature. Yet predominantly studying them grouped with social sciences risks eliding what sets their experiences apart: methodologically and epistemologically, as well as practically, economically, politically and emotionally. Doctoral writing is the site of personal struggle because text-based inquiry develops together with the emergence of scholarly identities (Kamler and Thomson, 2007). This is intensified by the close affinity between knowledge sought and the researcher’s sense of self associated with humanities scholarship: subjectivity, circumstances, research topic and contingent external influences entangle in ways that are hard to articulate and unique to each PGR (Crabtree, 2026). Without studying humanities experiences in their uniqueness, the scholarship is less equipped to shed light on the complex and poorly understood links between subject studied and graduates’ subsequent experiences (Ashton, 2023; Frenette and Tepper, 2016).

The limited capacity of existing scholarship to explain what is unique about humanities doctoral graduate experiences reflects wider concerns about the metrics used to evaluate humanities higher education (HE) (Ashton et al., 2023). Influential graduate outcome surveys prioritise economic measures such as short-term earning potential so that the humanities are benchmarked against standards set by other fields; consequently, the value of humanities degrees is routinely underrepresented (Ashton, 2023; Ashton et al., 2023; Belfiore, 2015). In the context of doctoral education, pitting humanities career outcomes against reasonable expectations for science graduates - such as finding research roles in the private sector (Hancock, 2021) - generates a bleak picture of the personal value of humanities doctorates to graduates. The hard-to-measure forms of impact associated with humanities education (Ashton et al., 2023), such as graduates’ increased civic engagement (Comunian et al., 2023), are overlooked. When longer-term experiences are considered, there are indications that humanities graduates reach higher salary levels and are more adept at translating their skills across sectors than their science peers (British Academy, 2020). ² The few studies that focus on humanities doctoral graduates who move into employment beyond academia highlight the emotional difficulties faced by PGR who start with academic career expectations and subsequently discover that prospects for this are low (Guerin, 2020; McAlpine and Austin, 2019). Yet there is cautious optimism that humanities doctoral education is perceived as valuable to employment beyond academia and participants connect this value more strongly to skills development than to research topics (Guerin, 2020; McAlpine and Austin, 2019). By concentrating on the personal value of doctorates in relation to careers, these studies overlook other ways in which humanities doctorates are valued by graduates and may support their lives. Career progression is one motivation behind doctoral study but it exists alongside intrinsic motivations such as enjoyment and genuine interest in the topic and desire to contribute to the field (Brailsford, 2010; Guerin et al., 2015; Skakni, 2018). While previous studies highlight the academic career aspirations of some humanities PGR (Guerin, 2020; McAlpine and Austin, 2019), the higher proportion of humanities graduates who are already retired is strong indication that intrinsic motivation also plays an influential role (AHRC, 2022b).

Nuriler and Bengsten’s in-depth qualitative study sheds light on how humanities doctorates support the fulfilment of intrinsic motivations like passion (2024). Through study of 10 humanities PGRs, they articulate the existential dimension entangled within the deeply transformative process that characterises doctoral education. This recognises the distinct nature of humanities disciplines in which there is a close affinity between knowledge sought and the researcher’s sense of self. Doctoral study is a significant phase in an individual’s life course in which the creation of knowledge and the journey itself leave the person feeling like a different one. This is connected to the intense emotions of the experience – anxiety and passion – which arise from the PGR freely choosing to do a PhD and selecting their own research topic (Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024). Such intense personal impact is important to recognise not only for addressing PGRs’ unique wellbeing needs (Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024) but also because it is a point of departure for the forms of societal impact fostered by humanities research (Nuriler et al., 2025). This articulation of humanities doctoral journeys troubles the finding reported above that graduates in employment beyond academia connect the value of their doctorates to skills developed rather than to the content of their research. Conceptualising the outcome of doctoral education through ambiguously defined “transferable skills” disregards the multidimensionality of the experience (Mowbray and Halse, 2010: 654). To engage learners on arts and humanities degrees, university professional development support needs to recognise that their motivations are not simply to develop skills but stem from passion for subjects (Lennox, 2025). While graduates articulate a direct relation between their doctorate and employment through the paradigm of skills, there are strong indications that the impact of doctorates on their wider lives, which includes their preparedness for personally sustainable employment, goes far beyond this.

The transformative existential dimension of humanities doctoral study poses the PGR questions like “who am I”, “what do I research/know” and “what do I do” (Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024: 231). These relate to: “who will I be in the future”. This concerns career aspirations, but also life beyond work, implicating wider existential questions like “what do I value” and “what is my purpose”. This article builds on this understanding by exploring the personal value of humanities doctorates holistically. It draws on four domains according to which doctoral graduates evaluate their doctorates: career, skills, social networks and how they see themselves (Guccione and Bryan, 2023). Examining the way in which these domains interact reveals that career and professional skills are only some of the criteria by which graduates assess the personal value of their doctorate – other domains, such as an individual’s sense of self and social network, are also important (Guccione and Bryan, 2023). Even when a graduate reports negative doctoral experiences, a sense of pride or enjoyment can be powerful enough to tip the balance towards deciding that their doctorate was worth it overall (Guccione and Bryan, 2023). Guccione and Bryan’s model was developed through quantitative and qualitative study of doctoral graduate participants disaggregated across two fields which each contain a wide range of experiences: STEM and HASS (Bryan and Guccione, 2018; Guccione and Bryan, 2023). Consequently, like the studies of doctoral graduates cited above, it is less adept at explaining the relationship between experiences in humanities and perceptions of value.

This article addresses this limitation in the existing scholarship by exploring holistic personal value in the context of reflections by doctoral graduates from one area of humanities research: Languages. This approach offers a humanities-specific elaboration of Guccione and Bryan’s model of doctoral value. Below, four themes are delineated to encapsulate participants’ reflections: “a double-edged sword”, “meaningful relationships”, “self-fulfilment” and “enhanced capacity to interpret the world”. Humanities doctoral education has the potential to do far more than support only employability or skills; it has an existential dimension, impacting multiple areas at once as it transforms the lives of graduates.

Methods

Survey

Data was collected via an interpretivist qualitative survey. This aimed to produce rich and complex accounts of subjective experiences amongst a diverse and little-known population (Braun et al., 2021). The anonymous online survey was open between February and May 2025, using Microsoft Forms. Since a comprehensive database of graduates was unavailable, convenience sampling was used: this harnessed the author’s personal network in Languages which they developed during their PhD. The survey was shared directly with contacts, posted on social media and via mailing lists, with instructions for current researchers to forward it to eligible contacts. LinkedIn was also used. University thesis libraries show the names of those who have completed doctorates; these were searched on LinkedIn and potential participants messaged directly. While time-consuming, this helped recruit a more heterogeneous sample.

The survey collected details about respondents’ doctorates, work experiences since graduation and personal characteristics. These answers enabled assessment of the heterogeneity of the sample and of the impact of these factors on perceptions of value. Free-text questions (Appendix 1) asked participants to reflect on four domains of doctoral value: career, skills, social networks and how they see themselves (Guccione and Bryan, 2023). An additional question asked how the “actual” value of their doctorate compared to that expected. This was included because humanities graduates with academic career aspirations often struggle if they change this plan (Guerin, 2020). All elements of recruitment and survey design were reviewed and received ethical approval. Before completing the survey, participants had access to an overview of the study, a participant information sheet and a data protection statement. They provided informed consent before accessing the survey.

Participants

Participants were invited to complete the survey if they met certain conditions: they had completed their doctorate at a British or Irish university; they identified their doctorate with the field of Languages; and their main activities had ceased to be academic research within this field. 60 responses were received. The focus on Languages arose for practical reasons to support recruitment, yet it brought benefits to the study’s insights. As identified by the literature review, a tendency of earlier scholarship is to subsume humanities participants with those from other fields which elides what may distinguish their experiences. Focusing on one humanities field supports the study to be grounded in a specific context. While recognising the context-bound nature of meaning-making through an interpretivist lens, this promotes insight into the complex relationship between subject studied and graduate perceptions of value. Furthermore, characteristics of Languages make it suitable for drawing out propositions relevant to other humanities fields. Languages research brings together a range of humanities methodological approaches (Harrison and McLelland, 2023); this is reflected in the research areas identified by participants, which included Literature, Literary and cultural theory, Film/media studies, Gender and sexuality studies, History, Philosophy, religion and the history of ideas, and Socio-linguistics. In the UK, Languages departments have been at the sharp end of the funding cuts affecting humanities more widely, with provision for Languages degrees halved since 2011/12 (British Academy, 2025). The precarious working conditions for early career researchers in the field reflect issues experienced in other humanities fields (Harrison and McLelland, 2023). Languages research exemplifies the concern for specific contexts that distinguishes the humanities from other fields (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024) because it is based on using knowledge of the language(s) spoken in a given area to study cultural and social matters relevant to that area (Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, nd). Participants identified their doctorates with 10 language areas, most commonly German, Italian, French, English, Russian and Hispanic. The Discussion explores the relevance of findings to other humanities fields by connecting them to wider scholarship while remaining sensitive to what may be specific to Languages.

Participants were asked to identify that their main activities had ceased to be academic research within Languages because survey distribution used networks of current researchers in the field. It was necessary to avoid an imbalance of responses from the minority of graduates who continue to paid research roles in the field. All participants answered that they had been in employment since graduation. The sectors in which they have spent most of their time reflect what is known about the wider population of humanities doctoral graduates: the largest proportions move into teaching-focused or professional roles in HE with smaller proportions embarking on careers in other sectors, such as media, policy and social care (AHRC, 2022b). Their characteristics are provided in Table 1 (Appendix 2). The median time since graduation was 8 years and the range was 40 years to 6 months. The most common salary band was £40,000–£49,999 (33%), which is higher than doctoral graduates previously studied (Guccione and Bryan, 2023). This reiterates the importance of using longer timespans to study humanities graduates (Ashton et al., 2023). 85% of participants were White and the majority women. In the theme Discussion, square brackets after participant citations contain details relevant to interpretation: doctoral research area(s); years since graduation; and work sector in which they have spent most time since graduation. Steps have been taken to reduce the risk of deductive disclosure compromising anonymity: years since graduation are provided as a 3-year range, specific language areas mentioned by participants are redacted, and a gender-neutral pronoun (they/them) is used for all.

Analysis

Under an interpretivist paradigm, analysis entails telling “stories” about data: interpreting through the researcher’s reflective and thoughtful engagement rather than finding “the truth” (Braun and Clarke, 2019: 591). This was developed by following the six phases for reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) (Braun and Clarke, 2019). This approach was appropriate due to my emic positionality. In RTA, researcher subjectivity is harnessed as a creative resource rather than potential threat to knowledge. The phases cultivate thoughtful and self-aware engagement with data, allowing time for the researcher to question their assumptions reflexively (Braun and Clarke, 2019). I completed my PhD in Italian Studies in the Languages department at a British University (St Andrews) between 2016 and 2020. I am White, non-binary, a British citizen, and have spent most of my life in the UK. After completing my PhD, I began working in researcher development, co-ordinating training and community-building for PGR cohorts. This led me to develop an interest in scholarship about doctoral education, and – through a personal and professional lens – I sensed gaps in scholarly understanding about humanities doctoral experiences. RTA supported me to harness this relevant experience while avoiding its overrepresentation.

At phase one, I familiarised myself with the data through repeated readings while taking notes to orientate myself. Phase two entailed systemic data coding: with further readings, I inductively developed codes by open-coding the data and paying attention to participant meanings. Coding took place in MS Word, using the comment function, and 49 initial codes were generated. At phase three, codes were collated to scope initial themes. At phase four, I returned to read the data to review these themes. At this point, I wrote a journal entry to evaluate the extent to which these reflected my own experience. While some were familiar (particularly “Meaningful relationships”), others felt less so (such as “Self-fulfilment”): while my experience informs my interpretation, this reassured me that it was not overrepresented. This process led to further iterations of coding to refine themes. At phase five, I defined and named themes. During phase six – writing the report – theme characteristics were further refined to create the story about the data represented in this article.

As an situated and interpretivist method, RTA is valuable for developing research about the humanities. Data generation based on quantitative and/or positivist approaches may be less equipped to produce insights that take account of its distinct mode of knowledge production (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024). While emerging from social sciences, RTA’s situated and creative approach to meaning-making bears resemblance to that used by humanities researchers. Employing this lens is a means of interpreting the humanities in a way that aligns with the distinct nature of the field and of contributing to understanding what its distinct qualities may comprise (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024).

Themes and discussion

“A double-edged sword”

A strong pattern across the data was the intensely ambivalent quality of personal doctoral value in the humanities. Participants associated value with all previously identified domains: career, skills, social networks and how they see themselves (Guccione and Bryan, 2023). It was common that the value they perceive their doctorate as having at the time of completing the survey was different to what they expected at the start of their PhDs. Doctoral graduates studied previously are found to be better at articulating reasons for the doctorate not being worth it than rationalising why it is still worth it despite the costs (Guccione and Bryan, 2023). It stood out that the humanities participants in this study were articulate in describing the benefits that made their doctorates worth it. These benefits co-existed with costs, spanning the four domains and entwined within individual accounts. P57 encapsulated this:

I expected the value of my PhD more linear and perhaps higher overall in a professional job context [sic]. At the same time, I did not necessarily expect it to have such high value for building international friendships and being part of a community [P57 – Comparative literature – 4–6 years – HE professional].

They went on to describe their PhD as a “double-edged sword”: even though it did not meet their academic career aspirations, they “wouldn’t want to miss” the benefits it brought. For them, unmissable benefits and career disappointment co-exist. The final free-text question asked participants to evaluate whether their doctorate was worth it overall. Responses echoed P57. Compared to personal doctoral value studied across disciplines (Guccione and Bryan, 2023), participants gave more mixed responses about whether their doctorate was worth it overall.

As P57’s words highlight (above), on one edge of the sword often lies the emotional challenge faced when PGRs who start with academic career aspirations gradually realise that these may not be tenable (Burford, 2018; Guerin, 2020; McAlpine and Austin, 2019). Several participants expressed disappointment at realising this. This sense of disappointment often lingered years after graduation and moving into employment in another field. One participant, many years after completion, wrote:

I would not be working in the field I am in now were it not for the PhD. However, there are very few posts available in academia in certain fields, and that can prove to be both a surprise and a disappointment for some PhD candidates (me among them). [P53 – Comparative literature; Gender studies – 10–12 years – Research outside of HE]

Decisions to move on from academic careers are often emotionally fraught due to deep socio-cultural and psychological attachments to academia (Burford, 2018). Earlier studies highlight the high proportion of humanities PGR who start with academic career aspirations (Guerin, 2020; McAlpine and Austin, 2019). This is reflected amongst participants of this study, as indicated by P53 who emphasised their disappointment even after finding relevant work elsewhere. Starting a doctorate with career expectations creates high stakes because perception of value often hinges on whether doctorates achieved what they set out to (Guccione and Bryan, 2023).

However, participants in this study who had unfulfilled career aspirations also highlighted the positive edge of the sword. Many responses referred to processes of gradual realisation: after a period of time they had come to see their PhD as actually more valuable than expected because of its unforeseen positive personal impacts. This is exemplified by P7: while they previously expected an academic career, they emphasized how its personal value developed in other ways.

I think the value that the PhD ended up providing for me was quite unexpected - it was the experience of doing it, in and of itself, and being in a university environment that was personally very fulfilling. I enjoyed the teaching experience I gained whilst I did my thesis. I made life-long friends and connections to my university town, even though I now live 200 miles away. I was able to pursue my special interest around others who valued it. [P7 – Gender studies; Film/media studies – 10–12 years – Pre-tertiary teaching]

Others expressed the positive edge of the sword in relation to skills gained from their doctorate, which unexpectedly transferred to other employment sectors. This is exemplified by P44 who moved into a HE professional services role.

When I first began the doctorate, I saw its value as a straightforward pathway to an academic research/teaching career in a subject I loved working in. I now see a broader value in terms of transferable and soft skills. [P44 – Literature; History – 4–6 years – HE professional]

Some, including P8, articulated the high-level abstract skills they continue to draw on in other sectors:

As a policy professional I feel I draw on the critical thinking skills I developed during my postgrad research frequently. This includes understanding how to use and weigh evidence, how to understand bias in narrative and how to construct an argument. [P8 – Literary and cultural theory; Literature – 16–18 years – Policy]

This reaffirms that humanities graduates perceive the value of their degrees to professional employment in relation to skills (Guerin, 2020; McAlpine and Austin, 2019). Participants working professionally in scholarly contexts, such as university administration or publishing, highlighted unique skills their doctorates bring to this work, such as the capacity to build trust and rapport with academics and to understand processes from the inside. Doctoral graduates often find fulfilling work in scholarly professional services and are able to bring perspectives capable of tackling the complex sticking points of the contemporary academy (Guerin, 2020).

The positive experience expressed by some of only coming to realise the value of their transferable skills after embarking on work in other sectors also has a negative edge. Participants described emotional and financial difficulties during the first years after graduation while transitioning into other roles. P40, who expressed that their PhD was worth it overall, highlighted this in the context of ambivalence.

Once I completed my studies, I went through an initial phase of submitting multiple applications with little success. This was followed by a sense of failure as I found myself working in a completely different sector. […] Despite these obstacles, I love my field of research, and I am now understanding the topic at a different pace and with a new mindset. [P40 – Philosophy, religion and/or history of ideas; literature – 7–9 years – HE professional]

The complex transitions of PGR graduates from all fields to employment beyond academia (Guerin, 2020; McAlpine and Austin, 2019; McAlpine et al., 2021) reflects strongly in the experience of humanities participants. Their responses highlighted an aspect of this complexity arising from the sense that any subsequent jobs are a let-down. As P33 exemplifies:

The hardest thing to balance for me now is that while other career paths offer more stability than academia, very few give you the space to think and work in this same way. [P33 – Literature – 1–3 years – HE teaching]

Concerningly, some participants highlighted painful hidden costs on the negative edge of the sword, in relation to mental health, finances (missing National Insurance contributions and debt) and the feeling that it delayed life choices like having children. Some expressed lasting frustration at this. Echoing P53’s long-term disappointment, many years after graduation P25 wrote:

Though I am extremely glad to have done the doctorate, the price, in terms of time and mental health, was too high. [P25 – Literature; History – 10–12 years – HE teaching]

However, they evaluated their doctorate as worth it overall, “for its own sake and for the opportunity to study a subject in depth”. Guccione and Bryan explain such seemingly contradictory responses in relation to sunk cost fallacy: doctoral graduates do not wish to admit that an endeavour in which they have invested so much was not worth it, and they use survey responses to self-affirm (2023). Sunk cost fallacy probably influenced the ambivalent responses discussed here. However, a difference amongst this study’s participants is that they were articulate about lay behind the overall high value of their doctorates, even when unfulfilled expectations and other costs were present. The following themes – “meaningful relationships”, “self-fulfilment” and “enhanced capacity to interpret the world” – unpack this edge of the sword further. As shown in the reflections discussed below, participants rated these impacts highly. To draw on P57’s words cited above, they represent benefits they would not want to “miss”.

Meaningful relationships

Participants highlighted the ongoing significance of social relationships developed during their PhDs. This reflects that graduates across disciplines connect doctoral value to the close social bonds formed with fellow PGRs and colleagues (Bryan and Guccione, 2018). It might be expected that humanities doctorates would have less impact on graduates’ social relationships. Compared with STEM, humanities research tends to be more solitary. With this in mind, it stood out that many participants highlighted the quality of friendships made during their PhD, such as “life-long” (P7 and P32), “my closest friends” (P9 and P28) and “meaningful long-lasting friendships” (P23). Several connected this quality of friendship to having been able to meet like-minded individuals with shared intellectual passions. As P7 explained:

I was able to pursue my special interest around others who valued it – now talking about it feels very alien and I don’t have many people in my current circle with whom I can discuss [Language area redacted] film. [P7 – Gender studies; Film/media studies – 10–12 years – Pre-tertiary teaching]

Researcher networking is conceptualised across two contexts: interpersonal – connections that offer emotional support and open opportunities – and intertextual – historical, epistemological and methodological relationships on which researchers build their own ideas (McAlpine and Amundsen, 2018). The way in which participants connected meaningful relationships developed during their PhD to intellectual affinities indicates the distinct nature of networking in the context of humanities researcher education. P27 exemplifies this. They described that their PhD changed them as a teacher and writer, and concluded by writing: “it was a way to meet lots of like-minded people”. They elaborated:

I have met dozens of very interesting people since I started my PhD: researchers, authors and translators who have enriched my social life. [P27 – Comparative literature – 10–12 years – Pre-tertiary teaching]

Interpersonal networking with like-minded individuals generates relationships that combine the emotional support of friendship with intellectual affinities that have not been encountered in other areas of life. Peers, colleagues and collaborators may become “personal friends” [P36 – Literature; Visual arts – 10–12 years – Publishing].

The associations that participants draw between meaningful relationships and the intellectual point to the impact of these relationships on their identities as researchers. The validation gained through talking about research in informal social settings is important to the development of researcher identities (Mantai, 2015). Advocacy for interdependence – in the sense that researcher development ought to be conceived as a collective process rather than individual endeavour – may be more needed in humanities compared to STEM (Grant, 2023). P35 alluded to this in reference to the size of their department. Humanities doctoral researchers are often part of smaller departments than peers in other fields – this may present more of an issue in departments divided into individual language areas.

I struggled to find community in modern languages, I was the only PhD student in [Language area redacted] in my year. [P35 – Environmental humanities; History – 4–6 years – Academic research outside languages]

However, the strong pattern of compelling accounts of the unique and meaningful relationships developed indicate that avenues for interdependent researcher development still exist within the humanities. They may be situated at a deeply personal level: friendships in which the emotional and intellectual entwine.

Participants also referred to the ongoing tangible benefits from relationships developed during their PhDs. Several highlighted that these led to jobs, reiterating what is already known about the positive influence networks have on opening professional opportunities (McAlpine and Amundsen, 2018). P3 expressed the entwined professional, personal and intellectual value of their doctoral network:

It has been genuinely valuable for expanding my personal and professional networks, which in turn has led to opportunities to volunteer and lead. That in turn helped shape my thinking for my next book. It’s also kept me connected to people, allowing for friendships to emerge. [P3 – Cultural studies – 10–12 years – HE teaching]

To appreciate the added-value represented by a humanities doctorate for developing meaningful relationships, it is worth highlighting that some participants expressed the value of their doctorate in relation to being first-generation students. P7 wrote:

Another value was being the first person in my family to get a PhD (and MA), which was unforeseen given my parents were both from working-class families. [P7 – Gender studies; Film/media studies – 10–12 years – Pre-tertiary teaching]

HE provides valuable opportunities for students to accrue social capital to which they may not otherwise have access (Mishra, 2020). Connecting the descriptions of meaningful relationships to the value highlighted by first-generation participants indicates that humanities doctoral education has the potential to play an important role in providing social experiences that may otherwise be inaccessible.

While most participants connect meaningful relationships to fellow PGRs, it is not clear from this study what activities fostered the development of these relationships. However, it can be assumed that friendships developed in the hidden channels of doctoral learning, whose role is not always recognised alongside official institutional support like supervisory meetings (Elliot et al., 2020). The doctoral hidden curriculum develops across extra-curricular activities whose impact can contribute to and even exceed the core doctoral curriculum: doctoral adjacent (such as attending seminars and using shared offices); side-hustles (such as teaching and work placements); and activities outside institutions (such as volunteering and hobbies) (Bryan, 2023). Since access to such activities is not equal across the board, they ought to be permanent and inclusive features of all doctoral programmes (Bryan, 2023). Given the solitary nature of humanities thesis writing, it is likely that the meaningful relationships described by participants emerged through such hidden activities. While further study in needed to explore the humanities hidden curriculum, the meaningful relationships described by participants suggest that hidden activities play an important role in promoting the overall personal value of humanities doctoral experiences.

Self-fulfilment

Graduates’ contradictory responses about the overall positive value of doctorates can be partly explained by a sunk cost fallacy; these responses may also suggest the influence of another, yet unidentified, value domain (Guccione and Bryan, 2023). Participants in the current study shed light on this. “Self-fulfilment” encapsulates a pattern across the data of participants expressing that, because of their doctorates, their subsequent lives felt more complete. In “A double-edged sword” P7 is cited: they described “the experience of doing it, in and of itself” as “personally very fulfilling”, highlighting experiences of teaching, making life-long friends and pursuing their special interest around others who valued it [P7 – Gender studies; Film/media studies – 10–12 years – Pre-tertiary teaching]. “Self-fulfilment” brings together participants’ perceptions that PhDs have played a unique role in providing the ongoing sense that their lives are more fulfilled than they would be without their doctoral experience. While this represents a strong pattern, participants perceived their doctorates as contributing to this in different ways: due to the achievement of an aspiration, the pursuit of a passion, the experience of joy, the development of intellectual abilities, and/or finding satisfying employment later in life. What makes an individual perceive an experience as fulfilling is subjective, and resistant to quantitative measurement or comparison across individuals. RTA provides a means of outlining this hard-to-articulate yet widely shared value domain.

Many described their PhD as something that they always wanted to do and would have regretted not doing. For P8, “it would have been an itch I would want to scratch” [P8 – Literary and cultural theory; Literature – 16–18 years – Policy]. P3 elaborated the existential dimension of this perspective:

There are things in life you need to do, no matter anyone else’s view on what you should be doing. We have the one life and a life well lived is one with a sense of satisfaction, and no regret at what you haven’t done with it. [P3 – Cultural studies – 10–12 years – HE teaching]

Doctoral study leads individuals to question their disciplinary identities and epistemic stances, which leads to intensive self-reflexivity and a process of existential becoming (Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024). Humanities research where there is close affinity between knowledge sought and the person’s sense of self fosters this (Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024). The theme “Self-fulfilment” indicates that undergoing such a process generates ongoing personal value to graduates which could not have been achieved through other activities, such as employment.

Echoing P33 (cited above), P36 described how, for them, employment cannot compare to doctoral research in terms of how “satisfying” it is: “I’ll also never have such a satisfying, ‘good’ job as being a doctoral researcher” [P36 – Literature; Visual arts – 10–12 years – Publishing]. Participants elaborated on this incomparability through using words like “joy” and “love” to describe memories of their PhD. As P4 wrote, despite unfulfilled academic career expectations, their PhD was worth it “for the sheer joy of doing it” [P4 – Linguistics; Socio-linguistics – 5 – Research outside of HE].

Individual attachments of PhD topics were important to participants’ sense of self-fulfilment. Many described that their motivation to undertake doctoral study was interest or passion in their topics. P6 described it as “the opportunity to spend 4 years studying something I am very interested in” [P6 – Literary and Cultural Theory; Gender Studies – 10–12 years – HE Professional]. P37 articulated this in relation to the fulfilment of an aspiration:

It was always something that I wanted to do. I had the immense privilege of researching a topic that I was passionate about. [P37 – Cultural Studies; Gender Studies – 1–3 years – HE Professional]

Freely selecting one’s own research topic lays the foundation for the passionate existential becoming associated with humanities doctorates (Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024). The reflections of this study’s participants indicate that personal attachments to topics help to foster doctoral experiences that foster graduates’ self-fulfilment in the long term. Several referred to the ongoing positive impact of having had the opportunity to pursue individual passions, as exemplified by P55:

Being a PhD candidate allowed me to spend 4 years of my time doing what I love most and am able to do best […] The PhD sustained and stimulated my curiosity, and allowed me to dedicate all my time to my passions. I think I am, as a consequence, a more stable and positive person I would have been without a fully-funded doctoral experience. [P55 – Comparative literature; Environmental humanities – 4–6 years – Academic research outside languages]

They concluded by describing their PhD as “the keystone of [their] academic and personal life”. Others described increased confidence in their intellectual abilities as offering a sense of fulfilment that continued to endure years later. P5 wrote:

I feel that I have the ability to understand and produce very complex subject matter and writing. […] The skills I have gained mean that I can access material and knowledge that I find fascinating, and this is very fulfilling. [P5 – Comparative literature – 10–12 years – HE teaching]

Other participants alluded to ongoing self-fulfilment from their doctorates in relation to current jobs described, for example, as “rewarding” (P1), “satisfying” (P10), “enjoyable” (P21) and “happy” (P45), even though they were not in the sector they had expected. These four participants graduated between 5 and 10 years ago: while humanities graduates experience challenging transitions in the initial years after doctorates, many find fulfilling work beyond academia in the longer term (Guerin, 2020).

Nevertheless, self-fulfilment co-existed with negative benefits within participants’ “double-edged swords” to generate the overall intense ambivalence with which graduates evaluate their doctorates. P52, appearing to contradict themself, expressed this complexity:

I absolutely loved research and teaching, and my area of study, so in that sense I don’t regret spending the extra time with it. But the stress of precarious work, summers without pay or on very low pay, and additional unpaid work involved in the roles I carried out, ultimately significantly outweighed the joy for me. [P52 – Literature; Literary and cultural theory – 13–15 years – Civil service]

They do not regret what they loved about their doctorate – alluding to self-fulfilment –, but (like for others) conditions of financial precarity make this pathway unsustainable. Ultimately, the self-fulfilment that graduates get from humanities doctoral study must balance with their material needs, yet one cannot simply regret it for this reason. Humanities doctoral research leaves the person feeling like a different one (Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024): this generates an unmissable sense of self-fulfilment.

Responses to one of the initial check-box questions suggest an experience that may be conducive to graduates’ perception of self-fulfilment. This asked participants about experiences prior to their doctorate: whether they started immediately following undergraduate or master’s degrees without long-term employment beforehand, or they took a break when they were employed. Those who had taken time out between earlier degrees and their doctorate were more likely to evaluate their doctorate as worth it overall compared to those who started immediately after earlier degrees. Given the importance of personal attachments to research topics to participants’ experiences of self-fulfilment, this suggests that time outside academia prior to doctoral study may support aspiring PGR to make more informed decisions about whether doctoral education will be fulfilling to them, and if so, which research topic.

Enhanced capacity to interpret the world

“Enhanced capacity to interpret the world” is closely connected to “Self-fulfilment”. P14 exemplifies this:

I feel that I am able to look back and see that I challenged myself to engage with a project for 4 years. I think spending time alone, researching and thinking deeply about something I am passionate about was very fulfilling and made me think differently about the world around me. [P14 – Philosophy, religion and/or history of ideas – 4–6 years – HE professional]

Variations of the phrase “made me think differently about the world” were recurrent: for example, P7 and P10 wrote that their doctorate “enhanced my knowledge and understanding of the world” and “changed my worldview”. Such responses were often in response to the survey question “Do you view yourself as changed or different in the world because of your doctoral education?”. Although it is unsurprising that participants repeated “world”, it is notable that they re-framed this to emphasise the doctorate’s impact on their capacity to understand or interpret the world. Several connected this to critical thinking and could articulate what this complex capacity means to them in practice.

Yes, mostly my critical mindset and the ability to question everything. I frequently notice issues that colleagues do not, because of this training. […]. At a human level I appreciate the critical thinking skills to help navigate a world of disinformation. [P1 – Literature; Visual arts – 4–6 years – Policy]

I distinctly remember thinking that completing a PhD changed me as a person. I think I mainly just felt much more personally effective, and committed to following thoughts through properly to be clear about what I did and did not mean, and why. [P58 – Philosophy, religion and/or history of ideas – 13–15 years – HE professional]

As P1 and P58’s comments exemplify, participants situated their enhanced interpretive capacity in the professional and personal realms. Similarly to P5 (cited in “Self-fulfilment”), P34 attributed the positive impact of their doctorate on their ongoing personal intellectual journey to increased confidence in their intellectual abilities:

I feel like it has given me the confidence to take on other subjects. I enjoy reading books by scientists, on all sorts. From environment to psychology. I enjoy the fact that I feel on a level with the professors / doctors who are the book authors, and feel like they are peers, rather than gods. I like feeling empowered to understand different areas of research. [P34 – Linguistics; Socio-linguistics – 7–9 years - Policy]

Responses offered less detail about the doctoral activities and processes that had helped to foster their enhanced capacity to interpret the world. Earlier scholarship offers insight on this: a lens to understand the challenging and all-encompassing nature of PGR learning is the crossing of threshold concepts (Kiley and Wisker, 2009). These are core concepts that, once grasped, lead “to a qualitatively different view of the subject matter and/or learning experience and of oneself as a learner” (Kiley and Wisker, 2009: 432). P32 articulated their experience of this process:

Doing a doctoral degree made me deconstruct everything about myself and my beliefs and start again from the ground up. [P32 – Gender studies; History – 10–12 years – Translation]

The crossing of threshold concepts shapes researcher education across fields but there are disciplinary variations in how it manifests and is understood (Kiley and Wisker, 2009). Participants’ descriptions of their enhanced interpretive capacity indicate the long-lasting transformative impact of crossing threshold concepts when this process is underpinned by the personal and situated nature of humanities knowledge creation and its sensitivity to specific contexts. Those whose research related to Gender studies emphasized the impact of developing doctoral research through this critical lens on their view of the world many years after graduation. P7 highlighted this both in relation to their professional work supporting vulnerable groups and to their understanding of themself. Their doctorate represented a unique exercise in developing compassionate self-understanding.

Basically I am still asking the question of “Does she belong?” (this was my thesis title) - I work with people unpacking and unpicking their intersectional oppression in real time, and helping them find their place in the world.

[…] I feel it helped me to navigate my own sense of belonging or exclusion in the world and unpick my own intersectional oppression, understand it and navigate the world better. It was therapeutic in a way traditional therapy or counselling has never been. [P7 – Gender studies; Film/media studies – 10–12 years – Pre-tertiary teaching]

Several articulations of doctoral value as an enhanced capacity to interpret the world reflected participants’ experiences in the field of Languages. For some this arose from knowing a foreign language which opened professional opportunities. P17 unpacked this further by connecting their capacity for interpreting other people to their experience of studying a cultural context in the language.

Really learning about one moment in time in one cultural context in the language enabled me to understand more about the fundamentals of who we are as people. That we all have the same needs and are often motivated by similar wants and desires. I think it gives me more patience when I meet someone new, particularly if we don’t have a shared language. [P17 – Literary and cultural theory; Gender studies – 7–9 years – HE teaching]

While such reflections relate to the Languages context, they are relevant to reflecting on humanities doctoral experiences more widely. Humanities lenses are distinguished by their local and contextual grounding: scholars position themselves in the middle of things, in the realm of the specific (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024). Participants in this study indicate how doctoral research underpinned by this distinct methodological approach fosters graduates’ enhanced capacity to interpret the world, and this continues to have valuable meaning in their lives beyond academia.

Humanities HE graduates contribute to society beyond their employability by being more likely to be socially and civically engaged (Comunian et al., 2023). Participants’ descriptions of their enhanced capacity to interpret the world reiterate this. After describing that their PhD changed their thinking processes, P58 highlighted how it also affected professional decision-making. They became more concerned about the social and civic impact of their employment.

I distinctly remember thinking that completing a PhD changed me as a person. I think I mainly just felt much more personally effective, and committed to following thoughts through properly to be clear about what I did and did not mean, and why. It also made me want to prioritise roles with a clear, practical impact on the world [P58 - Philosophy, religion and/or history of ideas – 13–15 years – HE professional]

P36, who was looking for work at the time of completing the survey, illuminated this impact from a different angle.

In essence, capitalist patriarchy sucks, and having a PhD provides very little, if any, defence against it. [P36 – Literature; Visual arts – 10–12 years – Publishing]

This comment recognises that the value of doctorates to employability is entangled with cultural and economic forces over which individuals have little control. At first glance, P36 appears to express resignation and disappointment. Yet they also emphatically described the overall value of their doctorate:

It’s hard to overstate how much I loved doing my PhD, and how much I changed and developed as a person whilst I was doing it. [P36]

In this light, their invocation of “capitalist patriarchy” should not be interpreted as a straightforwardly pessimistic view. This can be understood as a feminist interpretation of their situation and the wider forces that shape this. Capitalist patriarchy makes feminists angry yet their anger is not the problem: rather, being able to identify the cause of their suffering is a liberating refusal to normalise conditions that should not be normalised (Ahmed, 2017). This is small solace for graduates struggling to find work: their capacity to communicate their transferable skills to employers is also crucial (McAlpine and Austin, 2019). Yet humanities graduates are adept at flexibly translating their capacities across roles (British Academy, 2020). The shortening of contracts in today’s “gig economy” means that workers need to be prepared to do this across their careers (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2017). Being able to interpret one’s personal employment difficulties through a wide-angled lens is likely to promote the resilience needed to keep going. The deep and personal engagements with critical thought that characterise PGR-led research in the humanities are one way of sharpening this lens. Just as the capacity to communicate one’s skills across sectors is important to employability, so is the enhanced capacity to interpret the world described by humanities doctoral graduates.

Limitations

This study is based on the reflections and memories of a small sample of 60 graduates collected via an online survey. Participants identified that they had completed their PhDs at British and Irish universities and in the field of Languages. While the discussion has sought to connect their experiences to what is known about experiences in the humanities more widely, this focus is a limitation. The relevance of findings to other fields of the humanities is hypothetical, and further research is necessary. Although the high proportions of participants who were White and women reflects Languages (Harrison and McLelland, 2023), this may not be representative of all humanities fields. This is a limitation which impacts findings, as such characteristics may shape perceptions of value.

Conclusion

This article has focused on the British and Irish contexts yet it concerns issues familiar to humanities researchers across the world: drastic reductions in public funding and standardisation processes aligning the humanities with research management structures established in other disciplines. With the fluctuating availability of public funding, negotiating the purpose of doctoral education is a complex and open-ended process that concerns multiple stakeholders: PGRs, their departments and institutions, as well as wider social and political actors (McAlpine and Norton, 2007; Mowbray and Halse, 2010). Doctoral graduates are not the only stakeholders whose perceptions are relevant to negotiations about the purpose of doctoral education. Publicly-funded doctoral education needs to demonstrate its return for the taxpayer economically and socially. This study has intentionally not been led by this conceptualisation of value since this is covered by existing scholarship about graduate employability. Instead, it has turned attention onto the nuanced ways in which the value of humanities doctoral education is perceived by the graduates whose lives have been shaped by it, while considering the complex relationship between graduate experiences and subject studied.

The experiences presented here elaborate the holistic impact of doctoral education on graduates’ lives. Findings reiterate that employability and skills are not the only domains that matter: graduates’ sense of self and social networks are also impactful (Bryan and Guccione, 2018; Guccione and Bryan, 2023). Focusing on participants who identified their doctorate with Languages offers a humanities-specific elaboration of Guccione and Bryan’s model of doctoral value. “A double-edged sword” highlighted the intensely ambivalent personal value of doctorates experienced by humanities graduates: while significant costs are present, they co-exist with unmissable benefits. The following themes unpacked some of what these entail. The second theme showed how humanities doctorates have the potential to support meaningful relationships between like-minded individuals. This suggested the importance of recognising and promoting the hidden activities which foster such relationships during doctoral study, and the need for further research about the nature of the hidden curriculum in the humanities. The third theme brought together participants’ perceptions of an ongoing sense that their lives are more fulfilled than they would be without having done doctorates. Factors that contribute to this are subjective; connecting participants’ varied perceptions of self-fulfilment pointed to the hard-to-measure yet widely shared sense that graduates consider their doctorates as worth it, even when costs are present. Humanities PGRs undertake processes of existential becoming, which foster a sense of self-fulfilment not attainable through employment roles. Given the variation in factors behind graduates’ sense of self-fulfilment, the theme indicated that aspiring PGRs should be encouraged to take the time necessary to make informed decisions about whether they should pursue a doctorate, and if so, which topic will be personally fulfilling for them. The fourth theme explored participants’ perceptions that their capacity to understand the world had been enhanced by their doctorates. This included seeing the world more clearly, having stronger critical skills, increased confidence for personal intellectual pursuits, better understanding of those from different backgrounds, and the capacity to interpret one’s own difficulties through a wide-angled lens, such as that provided by feminism.

Drawing on participants’ reflections to elaborate these unmissable benefits, this article unites with others to argue for deeper reflection on HE’s economic and social returns: these do not only come from the production of a skilled workforce able to secure employment and high salaries quickly (Ashton et al., 2023; Belfiore, 2015; Comunian et al., 2023). The unmissable benefits connected to humanities doctoral study represent personal resources that support graduates to become workers able to face the challenges of today’s job market (Charted Institute of Personnel and Development, 2017). They align with intellectual virtues identified as important for challenging the epistemic threats posed by post-truth and academic echo chambers, such as open-mindedness, intellectual curiosity and fair-mindedness (Brown 2019; Lapsley and Chaloner, 2020). This article has connected the benefits described by participants to what distinguishes humanities research methods and experiences from other fields. This offers inspiration for researchers, funders and PGRs themselves to reflect on what is unique about humanities doctoral education and what elements we should seek to conserve and sustainably build into its future. For PGRs and graduates to harness these benefits, humanities doctoral education needs to be supported, structured and evaluated in ways that recognise what is distinct about their experiences.

There are three main implications for how to do this. The first is that the nuanced and far-reaching personal value of humanities doctoral education needs to be recognised in its evaluation and in how it is discussed with aspiring and current humanities PGRs. It may be a surprise to some that personal and social forms of value end up feeling just as valuable as employability. Raising awareness of the holistic impacts may help PGRs to set realistic expectations that reflect what graduates actually get from humanities doctorates. This implication aligns with the hidden curriculum framework for supporting doctoral learning; this is based on self-reflection so that individuals can make informed decisions about how to navigate the expanded pedagogies of doctoral education (Elliot et al., 2020).

The second implication concerns the decrease in funding available for humanities doctoral education. The unmissable benefits discussed here are grounded in the form of knowledge creation distinct to the humanities. This looks at the world from the perspective of specific contexts and from the situated position of the researcher. This positioning – “in the middle of things” – underpins the capacity of the field to resist abstraction and hold onto complexity (Gibson and Bengtsen, 2024: 16). Graduates leave doctorates with an enhanced capacity to interpret the world’s complexity. Humanities doctorates are not the only life experiences that bring benefits analogous to these. The key message of this article is that equitable opportunities for funding are crucial for ensuring that people from across society have access to the transformative existential journeys facilitated by humanities doctorates. These must not be reserved for the few who are able to pursue their intellectual passions without external funding.

The third implication concerns the stakes involved in the standardisation of humanities doctoral training and the decrease in PGR-led projects. Intrinsic motivation plays a strong role in promoting the long-term personal value of humanities doctorates. Funding needs to be channelled in ways that promote this. Supporting applicants to take time outside of academia to reflect on their motivations – such as by giving value to non-academic work experience during recruitment – may promote PGR-led doctoral projects that deliver high personal value in the long term. Allowing PGRs to freely choose their topic of research is also important: this fosters the passionate intellectual endeavours which drive existential processes of becoming (Nuriler and Bengtsen, 2024) and support graduates’ enduring perception of self-fulfilment. On a practical level, by putting these processes at risk, challenge-led PGR projects may cause problems for applicant numbers and retention. Diminishing PGRs’ ability to design their own projects also threatens the strength of the humanities to do what they do best. AHRC’s funding for challenge-led projects intends to develop doctoral training which has higher impact by addressing “areas vital to the UK’s creative economy and societal wellbeing” (AHRC, 2025). Yet, impact is not only a quantifiable end-product, but a lived process that requires “the individual doctoral researcher’s drive, passion, free choice, and engagement” (Nuriler et al., 2025: 211). Through offering evidence about the role of intrinsic motivation in promoting the long-term personal value of humanities doctorates, this article reiterates calls for institutions and funders to recognise the nuanced forms of societal impact facilitated by humanities research (Belfiore, 2015; Nuriler et al., 2025). Making changes to funding without this recognition undermines the situated form of knowledge creation that distinguishes the humanities from other fields. This raises the risk of unintended consequences not only for graduates but also for the future of humanities scholarship and the dark and complex world it provides a unique glimpse into. This article unites with others in the hope that another approach is possible.