Solo Session: Bridging Humanities and STEM PhDs

Students and Graduates!

Among stereotypes, historical divisions and practical differences, Humanities and STEM deeply bridge gaps in the PhD universe! If you haven't thought about what similarities PhDs in Humanities and STEM bring to the table, then this late-night talk is for you. An honest talk of two long-standing and "bittersweet" research areas that share their knowledge between each other. We discuss the following:

• Funding;
• Transferrable skilset;
• Interdisciplinary research methodologies.

If you want a clearer, kinder way to think about doctoral study, this conversation gives you language you can actually use, plus examples you can share with supervisors, friends, and future employers. Where do you see humanities and STEM meeting in real life?

Thank you all for tuning in, it has been a pleasure!

Bibliography:

• Freedman, D. (2025, April 25). Bridging the divide: the intersection of STEM and the humanities. Duke Trinity College of Arts and Sciences Department of English. https://english.duke.edu/news/bridging-divide-intersection-stem-and-humanities
• Ghosh, R. (2022). The degree value of Arts, Humanities and Social Science (AHSS) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) for Elite Professional Service (EPS) firms. In Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) (University of Oxford). https://doi.org/10.5287/ora-eo2b2v5q6
• Hastings Woodhouse, S. (2024, May 2). Arts & Humanities vs STEM PhD Applications – What’s the difference? Find a PhD. Retrieved May 28, 2026, from https://www.findaphd.com/blog/11395/arts-and-humanities-vs-stem-phd-applications-whats-the-difference
• Labodda, A., & Labodda, A. (2025, May 16). The STEM/Humanities Divide and Student Defeatism | Blog of the APA. American Philosophical Association. https://blog.apaonline.org/2025/05/12/the-stem-humanities-divide-and-student-defeatism/
• Oras, E., De Groot, J., & Björkstén, U. (2025). The “biomolecular humanities”? New challenges and perspectives. iScience, 28(2), 111679. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.111679

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello students and graduates, welcome to PhD Lounge, the podcast of late-night talks in which PhDs have a drink and talk about their research topics. Humanities and STEM. Two long-standing and bittersweet fields with different advantages in the course of society, yet they are totally inseparable. PhDs in humanities and STEM are two synergies where candidates from both fields can have a good laugh about their research or cheer their accomplishments by sharing them at pubs, conferences, and seminars. Their doctoral application and written dissertation systems are incredibly different. A STEM PhD is about lab research, generally with a pre-designed project where the leading team will evaluate your groundbreaking discoveries, negative and positive experiments, data reports, research posters, and a written dissertation between 30 to 50k plus words. A humanities PhD, on the other hand, encompasses a research project proposal around 2500 to 3000 words, a 3 plus year dissertation that has a maximum of 100k, or, although quite rare, 120k words, and lots of public speaking and conferences. Despite these differences, have you thought about any similarities in PhD humanities and STEM? In this late night session, I highlight three comparable points for PhDs in humanities and STEM. 1. Funding In STEM, funding is likely to be attributed due to the project's specifics, whereas in humanities, a PhD student may have to apply for it separately from the research, competing against others in order to be awarded and taking into account the current financial cuts. But regardless, PhD funding in both fields has quite a similar outcome. That is, you may be eligible for a grant application through UKRI, for example, to support your humanities and STEM research subject. Or you can apply to student loans like myself, in which the process is straightforward. 2. Skill set Throughout your humanities and STEM PhDs, you'll develop important skills from project and time management to honing critical thinking and mastering academic writing. Both fields are structured for you to write your arguments and research results, allowing you to develop these transferable skills regularly when you sit down and start writing complex analysis and chapter drafts under time constraints across your dissertation. And three, interdisciplinary methodologies. PhDs still borrow humanities and STEM research methodologies for their dissertations. This is a positive movement from PhDs because it helps to bridge their connections for potential

Welcome To PhD Lounge

SPEAKER_00 3:16

innovation. For example, you can find dissertations in Digital Humanities, where Python was applied, or the transdisciplinary

Why Humanities And STEM Stick Together

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research area of biomolecular humanities to study evolutionary DNA by researching the history of human evolution, which provides valuable context to STEM case studies on human genetics. The union of humanities and STEM is so strong, it's all down to stereotypes, historical divisions, and the great work that has been

How The PhD Systems Differ

SPEAKER_00 3:53

done to bridge the gaps between them. PhDs of both fields, despite their differences in approach to their topics, still rely on interdisciplinary methodologies that help the world progress. And it keeps becoming more relevant when casual research pubs, conferences, and festivals join both synergetic fields to conceptualize the PhD as a universal degree. Thank you all for tuning in. It has been a pleasure.