Funding
The Faculty of Life Sciences provide a range of funding options (from internal and external sources) for applicants for our PhD programmes.
International Funding Opportunities
We are able to support the most outstanding applicants through our bursary scheme. In general we offer partial scholarships to help with tuition fees or living costs, or on occasion, a full scholarship can be awarded for candidates with an exceptional academic and research background.
Click the titles to expand/close a category.
President’s Doctoral Scholar Awards
We are currently making awards for the academic year 2013/14.
Awards are made to exceptional individuals who are able to partially fund their studies through other routes (personal funds, scholarship etc). These prestigious awards are open to all nationalities and research areas. If you are applying for a self-funded project and wish to be considered for a PDS Award, then you should submit your PhD application as soon as possible.
Within the Faculty of Life Sciences, PDS Awards will be allocated to our most outstanding applicants seeking PhD opportunities. We aim to award 10-15 scholarships per year. In general these awards will be made to partially cover fees and/or living expenses. However, should an applicant with exceptional academic/research skills be identified, then we may be able to offer a full scholarship.
Successful PDS Award holders will have the opportunity to:
- Be invited to attend a series of exclusive events where you’ll have the opportunity to meet the University of Manchester President and Vice Chancellor, interact closely with our academic community and network with other PDS Awards students
- Benefit from international research leadership under distinguished scholars
- Become a PDS Awards ambassador for the University
- Receive a President’s Doctoral Scholar medal at graduation
- Benefit from our extensive transferable skills training for PhD researchers
Criteria
Applicants must have obtained (or expect to obtain) a minimum first-class honours degree (or equivalent), and ideally hold a Masters-level qualification at merit or distinction. They should ideally have a track-record of engaging with research. This may include contributions to publications/articles, promoting their research to a wider audience, prizes for previous research or project work.
How to apply
Applicants must submit an online PhD application for a self-funded PhD project in the Faculty of Life Sciences. Search for projects on our homepage PhD Programmes using the search box for ‘Self-funded projects for International or UK/EU students’. Please also complete a Bursary/PDS application form:
Bursary/PDS application form: Word ¦ PDF
The bursary application form should be submitted to the Faculty of Life Sciences Postgraduate Research Office: pgresearch.lifesciences@manchester.ac.uk
Enquiries on PDS Awards within the Faculty of Life Sciences should be directed to the scheme co-ordinator, Jessica Bowler at jessica.bowler@manchester.ac.uk.
For more information, see: President's Doctoral Scholar Award website.
International Postgraduate Research Bursaries
The Faculty of Life Sciences has a number of international bursaries available for PhD study within the Faculty. Bursaries are awarded based on outstanding academic achievement and vary in amounts, depending on candidate requirements and background. Applicants for a bursary should generally be able to fund a proportion of the required tuition fees and living expenses and clearly outline other sources of secured funding in their application. We began to make the first round of bursary awards from March 2013 (for entry in the academic year 2013/14). Therefore, please ensure you submit your online PhD application and bursary application form as soon as possible if you wish to be considered for a bursary.
Applicants must submit an online PhD application for a self-funded PhD project in the Faculty of Life Sciences. Search for projects on our homepage PhD Programmes using the search box for ‘Self-funded projects for International or UK/EU students’. Please also complete a Bursary/PDS application form. Applicants for a bursary can also be considered for a President’s Doctoral Scholar Award.
Bursary/PDS application form: Word ¦ PDF
Other Scholarship Programmes
Wellcome Trust Four Year PhD
The Faculty of Life Sciences has up to 5 Wellcome Trust Four Year PhD studentships to award each year to start in September. These studentships are available to students from all nationalities however, the awards only cover UK/EU fees and living expenses. International applicants must be able to arrange funding to cover the remaining proportion of the fees each year. Academically excellent applicants are encouraged to apply for other scholarships, to cover the difference between International and UK/EU fees. For more information on these studentships, visit:
CONICYT Chile Scholarships
The Faculty of Life Sciences is able to consider applications from students applying for CONICYT scholarships. If you hold or are applying for a CONICYT scholarship and require more information please email for more details.
Royal Thai Government Scholarships
The Royal Thai Government offers Thai students the opportunity to apply for a Thai Government Scholarship. The scholarships are normally available for students in their last year of their bachelor degree or who are currently studying a masters or a PhD. The Faculty of Life Sciences are able to consider such students applying for these scholarships.
Commonwealth Scholarship Commission
The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom (CSC) has scholarships opportunities to study in the UK. The Faculty of Life Sciences supports applications from this source.
Please ensure you submit your online application in plenty of time ahead of the CSC deadline to enable us to process it; we cannot send offer letters until your PhD application has been fully assessed and a formal interview has taken place.
Iraqi scholarships
The Faculty of Life Sciences is able to consider applicants from Iraq that have secured funding from (or are applying to) the Iraq Government for a scholarship. We are able to tailor a study programme that may include pre-sessional English courses, depending upon your level of proficiency in English. For more details see:
Science without Borders
The Faculty of Life Sciences are keen to support applicants looking to undertake full PhD programmes or short-term PhD visits. There is more information on how to apply on the University Brazil pages Science without Borders (Brazil) / Ciência sem Fronteiras. In addition, Dr Nicky High, the Faculty Postgraduate Tutor, would be happy to offer any advice on finding a suitable supervisor.
UK/EU Funding Opportunities
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Studentships
Each year the Faculty of Life Sciences has a number of studentships on offer to eligible UK/EU applicants. These studentships are funded by awards from UK research councils (i.e. BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC, ESRC, AHRC), plus some charities. Studentships are linked to specific PhD projects and are available for applicants to work in the laboratories of named Principal Investigators (PIs). Each year the list of funded PhD projects varies. We also offer CASE studentships (backed by an industrial sponsor). To view a profile of an existing CASE student, see What is a PhD?.
To view the list of funded PhD projects currently on offer within the Faculty of Life Sciences, search:
Wellcome Trust Four Year PhD studentships
The Faculty of Life Sciences also has up to 5 Wellcome Trust Four Year PhD studentships to award each year to start in September. For more information on these studentships, visit:
BBSRC Doctoral Training Programme (DTP)
In addition, PIs in the Faculty of Life Sciences also have projects available as part of the University-wide BBSRC Doctoral Training Programme (DTP). Projects are available in a range of research disciplines, visit:
Studentships funded by UK Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust carry support for tuition fees and living expenses (stipend). There may be specific conditions related to full eligibility of EU applicants who are not UK nationals and, hence, awards may be for fees only. Funding body awards are subject to academic and residential eligibility criteria (as defined on their websites - BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC, ESRC, AHRC, Wellcome Trust).
The Faculty of Life Sciences can occasionally provide a stipend bursary for excellent EU students that do not meet the full eligibility criteria set by the Research Councils. This will be discussed at interview.
President’s Doctoral Scholar Awards
Awards will be made to exceptional individuals that have secured a fully-funded PhD studentship in the Faculty of Life Sciences.
UK/EU students that have been offered a studentship in the Faculty of Life Sciences (BBSRC DTP, Resarch Council, Wellcome Trust), will be automatically considered for a PDS Award. There is no need for UK/EU students to complete an application.
Successful PDS Award holders will have the opportunity to:
- Be invited to attend a series of exclusive events where you’ll have the opportunity to meet the University of Manchester President and Vice Chancellor, interact closely with our academic community and network with other PDS Awards students
- Benefit from international research leadership under distinguished scholars
- Become a PDS Awards ambassador for the University
- Receive a President’s Doctoral Scholar medal at graduation
- Benefit from our extensive transferable skills training for PhD researchers
Criteria
Applicants must have obtained (or expect to obtain) a minimum first-class honours degree (or equivalent), and ideally hold a Masters-level qualification at merit or distinction. They should ideally have a track-record of engaging with research. This may include contributions to publications/articles, promoting their research to a wider audience, prizes for previous research or project work.
Enquiries on PDS Awards within the Faculty of Life Sciences should be directed to the scheme co-ordinator, Jessica Bowler at jessica.bowler@manchester.ac.uk.
For more information, see: President's Doctoral Scholar Award website.
2012 Awards
Click on one of our current student profiles below to see their 2012 awards.
Jude Chenge (Nigerian)
PhD Molecular Enzymology
Jude was awarded a Faculty of Life Sciences International Bursary of £2,000 per year to reduce his tuition fees.
+/- More about Jude
I have always been enthusiastic about chemistry, physics and biology whilst at High School and was motivated to study for a degree in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, starting at University of Jos -Nigeria and continuing at Grand Valley University in the United States. After completing my graduate research thesis on “Drug Design for Diabetes” in Michigan-USA, I wanted to continue into post-graduate research in the molecular biosciences with the intention of progressing into a research related career.
Our research group, located at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Munro, adopts an interdisciplinary approach towards tackling novel problems in drug design, metabolism and pharmacokinetics, which interests me greatly.
The primary aim of my PhD project is to express, characterize, and find the substrates for the mycobacterium tuberculosis Cytochrome P450 isoforms (CYP141 and CYP144) as this will enable the development of novel drugs that inhibit these crucial enzymes important for the pathogenicity of the bacteria. This project combines the more traditional enzyme-kinetics style analysis, with the emerging fragment-based method for substrate development. This fragment-based method is in collaboration with Professor Chris Abel at The University of Cambridge and I particularly enjoy having the opportunity to work between institutions of such repute.
The University of Manchester is a world top ranking university with reputable history of groundbreaking discoveries, thus it was an easy decision when I received my acceptance letter. After I received my acceptance letter, the next issue was funding. I went through the funding and scholarship website for scholarships available for US citizens and international students and came across the Faculty of Life sciences Bursary. I applied and about a month later I was emailed a confirmation of approval of the bursary.
Shaun Kandathil (Indian)
PhD Bioinformatics
Shaun was nominated for a President’s Doctoral Scholar Award which provides him with a full scholarship covering both his tuition fees and stipend (living expenses).
+/- More about Shaun
I studied a BE in Biotechnology at the MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology in India and an MRes Biological Sciences at The University of Manchester. The MRes was great in that it helped me narrow down my research interests and decide that I wanted to do a PhD. My current work involves analysing computational protein structure prediction methods with Simon Lovell (FLS) and Julia Handl (Manchester Business School). This is a research area that I am greatly interested in, and the group is fantastic. As an international student, funding for a PhD is hard to come by and I was lucky enough to be awarded a PDS award and an FLS bursary that covered everything! I think it's fair to say I probably wouldn't be doing a PhD (in a subject area that I really like!) were it not for these awards.
Mitra Forohoun (Iranian)
PhD Biochemistry
Mitra was nominated for a President’s Doctoral Scholar Award which provides her with a scholarship to cover her tuition fees.
+/- More about Mitra
I obtained my BSc degree with a first class honor in Cellular and Molecular Biology-Genetics from Shahrekord University of Iran and then moved to the Imperial College of London in which I undertook my MSc degree in Human Molecular Genetics. Following successful completion of my MSc degree with a first class honor, I was appointed as a research fellow at the Royal Veterinary College.
Needless to say, finding a scholarship is the most challenging part and at the same time preliminarily and prerequisite requirement in pursuing higher education, but when it comes to international students and PhD level its importance stands out, as only handful of scholarships are open to international students. The PDS award not only opened the door for me to fulfill my far-fetched goals by giving me the chance of studying my PhD in my field of interest in a world-leading lab, but also provides me with an excellent opportunity to work with world-class scientists at one of the best universities with world-wide reputation.
Katie Muddiman (British)
BBSRC DTP Studentship
Katie was nominated for a President’s Doctoral Scholar Award once she had been offered a BBSRC DTP Studentship in the Faculty. She receives an enhancement to her stipend of £1,000 per year. All BBSRC DTP candidates are automatically considered for a PDS Award.
+/- More about Katie
The University of Manchester was my priority for a PhD due to its excellent cross-departmental research ethos, high-quality PhD projects and vibrant city life. Although wary that remaining at Manchester would be the ‘easy’ option (having completed my undergraduate degree here), I felt being a postgraduate in the Faculty of Life Sciences offered me the best chance of scientific and personal development. I really enjoyed my final year research project investigating sulphur-sensing in bacteria, and was delighted to be offered a PhD in the same lab.
I feel privileged to have been chosen as a recipient of the award as part of my PhD, and I am determined to make full use of the opportunities that will arise as part of the scheme.