Support People
Students, Teaching, and Research
Our People
Supporting the Academic Mission of Jesus is at the heart of what we do. A top priority for College is to provide ample support for our students, Tutorial Fellows, and researchers. We seek to remove the financial barriers to Higher Education that can make studying at Oxford cost prohibitive for many capable prospective students. Our bursary provision ensures that around 30% of our undergraduates benefit from some form of means-tested support each year, but we still aim to do more to close the inequality gap.
College also sees the significant difference this support can make when applied to graduate studentships. Reduced public funding for postgraduates across all disciplines, but especially in the humanities, means that too often the brightest students cannot take up their offers of continued study here. To remain competitive as a leading institution for graduate research, we need to be able to offer generous studentships that will alleviate financial burden at this critical stage in a student's early academic or research career.
The tutorial system is what makes the Oxford educational experience so valuable. Donors can support teaching posts in specific subjects, helping to ensure that we maintain an optimal balance of tutors to students. Donations towards College teaching help Jesus sustain the balance of the tutorial system when Fellows retire, attract and retain the best academics in their fields, and champion early career academics who create invaluable support networks for our students.
Graduate Studentships
The study of the humanities at Oxford is nearly as old as the University itself, although the official subject grouping of the "humanities" was acknowledged much later. Today, Oxford’s Humanities Division is comprised of a wide array of subjects encompassing languages, literature, history, philosophy, classics, theology, law and the arts.
Jesus holds a centuries-long commitment to the study of the humanities disciplines and believes in the relevance of these subjects in the 21st century. Our undergraduate tutorials and postgraduate supervisions in these subjects are taught by world-leading experts in their fields. This is a critical time for Jesus humanities students to learn across disciplines how to address major global issues facing society today. Not least, supporting the humanities continues to be a core component of College’s Academic Mission.
However, recent developments related to graduate studentship funding in the humanities are threatening the sustainability of graduate recruitment and ongoing University partnership funding arrangements with colleges. Most notably, the end of the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (OOC DTP), will mean a significant cut in Arts and Humanities Research Council funding from 2026 onwards. The reduction of public funding for humanities research means that Jesus will have the additional pressure to cover the costs of providing studentship awards for top graduates.
These changes pose a pressing strategic challenge for College, which will mean studying the humanities at graduate level at Jesus will become cost-prohibitive to many without additional support.
To ensure that College remains a competitive destination for humanities study at every level, our aim is to fund the following priorities:
To create new spend-down graduate scholarships in the humanities, helping us to offer more competitive studentships to the next generation of researchers.
To endow new undergraduate student bursaries, to make the study of the humanities affordable and a practical option for all.
To create a humanities endowment at College so that the return on investment can be used use to support teaching, research, and studentships in perpetuity.
“Jesus College is dedicated to preserving the study of the humanities at undergraduate – and especially graduate – level as an affordable option.”
– Dr Alexandra Lumbers, Academic Director
“I am studying how sixteenth-century Romans responded and participated in urban reconstruction. This research adds to diverse conversations about urban planning, gentrification, and political communication. To this end, I am examining sixteenth-century Roman newsletters, diaries, letters, and texts which mention the diversity of responses to Roman urban building, broadening our understanding of political activities and urban building in pre-modern contexts. I’m grateful for your financial support as, without this help, I would never be able to pursue my lifelong dream of reading for a DPhil. As a child growing up in Portland, Oregon, I would have never believed my future self would have the opportunity to study at Oxford.”
Lena Breda
2022, DPhil History
Recipient of the Stephen Walker and Stephen O’Flaherty AHRC matched Scholarship in History
Undergraduate Bursaries
Jesus College provides significant financial support to supplement the Oxford Bursary and Crankstart Scholarship schemes for students from lower-income households. The enhanced support we can offer our undergraduate students can be life-changing.
“Affordability and access are a core part of our College mission. We believe the only real measure of a student’s worth should be their intellect and potential, and that finance should never be a barrier to receiving an Oxford education.”
Dr Matthew Williams
Access Fellow and Tutor in Politics
Bursary Spotlight
The Stephen Jenkins Bursary
College is proud to announce the launch of a new undergraduate student bursary in honour of late Jesus alumnus Stephen Jenkins (2005, Geography).
Alumni will remember Stephen as a proud Welshman and avid sportsman. Stephen grew up in Carmarthenshire and was a passionate Scarlets and Welsh Rugby fan. He made his mark on the College rugby pitch as Captain. He was an active JCR member and enjoyed a good night spent at the College bar. In 2024 Stephen died tragically after completing the Cardiff Half Marathon. He was 37. College is hoping to raise £100,000 to endow an undergraduate student bursary in his name. This enhanced bursary will provide life-changing financial support to future Jesus students from Wales reading any subject.
"We collectively want to pay tribute to the College chapter of Stephen’s life, and we know that Welsh Access was a cause he felt extremely passionate about."
– Kathryn McArdle (2005, Jurisprudence)
Professor Armand D'Angour, Fellow and Tutor in Classics
Support Teaching
We wish to protect the unique educational experience provided by the Oxford tutorial system, whilst also putting Jesus in the strongest possible position to meet the educational and research needs of the future. Most importantly, we need to attract the very best teaching talent to Jesus College, retain and motivate our Tutorial Fellows and Lecturers, and foster the unique research-led teaching that will inspire a new generation of students.
We believe this form of teaching is vital to an Oxford education, but the government funding we receive only covers half of the teaching costs for College, meaning that we need to raise additional funds to sustain this special teaching system and support our tutors.
Tutorial Fellowships
Tutorial Fellows play an essential role at Jesus in guiding our students to think critically. Many of our Tutorial Fellows and Lecturers are exceptional researchers in their own right and greatly enjoy teaching. Tutorial Fellows combine their expertise and genuine enthusiasm for their subject with a desire to help our students realise their intellectual potential.
Weekly tutorials in College are where subject knowledge crystalises and is where our students are encouraged to seek answers, defend their views, and build the confidence and skills necessary for their academic success and for their future. By helping to subsidise the cost of our Tutorial Fellows, you help ensure that current and future Jesus students will benefit from the same mentorship, teaching, and care had by previous generations.
Support Research
College Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs) and Career Development Fellowships (CDFs) are competitive fixed-term fellowships for scholars to pursue independent research after the completion of their doctorate, and they are a vital stepping stone for those early in their careers. We need to provide resources for early career academics in order to help them expand their networks and to foster a stable environment where they are given the time, support and opportunities needed to progress in their fields.
Support for JRFs and CDFs is welcome across all disciplines and helps College to deepen the diversity of academic interest within the Fellowship. Candidates for JRFs are selected competitively on the basis of the quality, originality and importance of their research.
JRF Spotlight
Peter Clarke Junior Research Fellowship in Law
In 2025, College announced plans for a new Junior Research Fellowship in Law at Jesus in memory of Peter Clarke, Fellow and Tutor in Law from 1971-2009.
This competitive three-year JRF in Private Law will allow College to bring the teaching of an additional strand of Law into Jesus, and, importantly, would give an exceptional early-career academic the time and support needed to write and publish in the field.
Over the last two decades, support for such spend-down Fellowships has become an integral part of the academic community in Law at Jesus and helps create a strong subject context for College’s undergraduates and graduates. The new Peter Clarke JRF will continue this tradition of supporting early career Law academics at Jesus and allow College to continue to attract the best and brightest legal minds at this exciting early stage in their professional development. In addition, Jesus Law students will continue to benefit from a strong teaching provision that widely covers the subject, complementing the expertise of tutors Dr Simon Douglas (Property and Roman Law), Dr Miles Jackson (Criminal and Constitutional Law) and Emeritus Fellow Professor Peter Mirfield (Criminal Law).
"Many of us will feel lucky to have had people in our lives that have made a real difference - people whose guidance gave us the confidence to succeed. For me and for generations of Jesus lawyers, Peter was the one to make that difference."
– Robert James (1972, Jurisprudence)
