The transformative work of the Dulverton Trust

The Dulverton Trust has always recognised the importance of providing scholarships at Oxford for students from regions of the world where such opportunities are rare. As history moves on the areas in greatest need may change, but the trust’s commitment to making a difference remains constant. Through its Michael Wills and Dulverton Scholars, the trust hopes to effect positive and lasting change throughout the world.

2015 is the 50th anniversary of the Michael Wills Scholarships, which have supported around 120 students since their inception. Captain Michael Wills MC, a former student of Magdalen, was killed in action in Tunisia in 1943; his cousin and close friend, the second Lord Dulverton, founded the scholarships to commemorate him. In the spirit of post-war reconciliation, the original awards were for German students who wanted to pursue graduate study at Oxford. They now enable students from Sub-Saharan Africa to take masters’ degrees in subjects relating to development, economics, diplomacy and migration studies. The Michael Wills Scholarships are jointly funded through a partnership between the Dulverton Trust and the University’s Department of International Development.

In addition, the Dulverton Trust wholly supports three Dulverton Scholars per year, from Eastern Europe or Sub-Saharan Africa, to take masters’ or DPhil degrees in any subject.

 Maria Balgova at St Cross College. Photo by John Cairns

The graduate student

Maria Balgova is a Dulverton Scholar in her second year of an MPhil in economics at St Cross College. From a bilingual state grammar school in Slovakia, she undertook her undergraduate studies at Cambridge where she went on to gain a first in economics and wrote her undergraduate thesis on the relationship between life expectancy and inequality of income.

She continues to be interested in the theme of inequality, and also in unemployment as an economic problem. Her MPhil thesis looks at the relationship between the two. She explains her thinking: ‘How do different wage distributions change the incentives of workers to search for new jobs, and of companies to create new vacancies? Those two factors – how people search, and how firms offer jobs – are some of the major determinants of unemployment levels in a society. My thesis explores this link between different wage distributions and different levels of unemployment.’

Maria is now staying on to read for her DPhil. Motivated by the fact that some parts of Slovakia have experienced unemployment levels of more than 20% since the revolution more than 20 years ago, she would like to look at the phenomenon of these areas ‘that simply don’t seem to converge with the trends in the rest of the country. I’d like to extend this to all of Europe – and try to figure out why these regions seem to be stuck at very high unemployment levels, despite, for instance, the significant funding from the European Union’s Regional Cohesion Programmes.’

Since her first year at Oxford, Maria has been writing a blog in Slovak about her experiences and is sometimes contacted by her readers. ‘The main reason why I wanted to do it,’ she explains, ‘is because I know that many people in Slovakia don’t really know what it means to study in Oxford.’

Maria hopes to continue in academia and pursue her economic studies in ways which she hopes will help disadvantaged regions both in her native country and elsewhere in Europe. Of her scholarship, she says: ‘The Dulverton Trust enables us to help our home countries. It’s great to do well academically, but it’s even better to do well academically in something that matters for society.’

 Dr Hartmut Mayer at St Peter's College. Photo by John Cairns

The lecturer and college fellow

Dr Hartmut Mayer was a Michael Wills Scholar from 1995 to 1997. As a 16 year old in Germany, however, he had quite a different plan: ‘I always wanted to be a journalist. There was no doubt, and I knew exactly what I wanted to become – a foreign correspondent for German media in Washington.’ He worked as a weekend sports journalist throughout secondary school, after which he studied history, politics and drama at the Free University of Berlin. He went on to graduate studies in International Relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University, Massachusetts), at Harvard and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Throughout this period ‘every summer’, he says, ‘I worked as a journalist.’ Fulfilling his ambitions, he wrote for, among others, the German Press Agency dpa in New York, the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich and Die Zeit in Hamburg.

The first year of what became a DPhil in International Relations from St Antony’s College was sponsored by the Süddeutsche Zeitung; at the end of that year, the young Hartmut could not see quite how he would be able to continue. He applied for a one-year German academic exchange programme scholarship, but his application was passed on to the Dulverton Trust because his profile fitted that scholarship so well. This was the first study award he had received that was not related to journalism, and the two years of study it provided ‘enabled me to finish my doctorate’ he recalls. ‘My doctorate then changed my life plan: I discovered that academia was a real alternative to my journalistic ambitions.’

It was following this that Dr Mayer became Fellow and Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at St Peter’s College. Although he initially found it a hard decision to let go of the excitement of journalism, he has been, he says, very happy with his choice: ‘In academia, I have more time to reflect about things and I love the interaction with the students. But I can also go out and work with think tanks, I can still engage in journalism, and I am part of various policy–academia networks which include access to policymakers. This is, for me, the ideal position to be in.’

Dr Mayer is also Adjunct Professor in European and Eurasian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University SAIS Bologna Centre. His academic interests include German and EU politics, international relations theory, EU–Asia relations (with Japan in particular), and European responses to rising powers and comparative regionalism. He has held research and visiting posts at the European University Institute in Florence and Tokyo’s Waseda and Hitotsubashi Universities. Dr Mayer is also currently involved with a larger Oxford-based research programme on Rethinking Europe in a Non-European World (RENEW).

Support Graduate Students at Oxford