Fill in your name in the correct format, capitalising the appropriate letters (e.g. Joe Bloggs instead of joe bloggs), as this will be used in all future correspondence with yourself and your named referees.

This is a competitive programme where studentships will be awarded to the best applicants based on information submitted on the application form, references and interview performance. Please note that we will not fund all projects.

When you complete the application form you will be asked to select up to three PhD projects in ranked order, with 1 being your most preferred choice. Before completing the application form, please read about the available PhD projects carefully.

You do not need to contact supervisors to discuss the project(s) but you are welcome to do so if you wish.

Please list any relevant research experience that you have, either as part of or outside your university degree course, starting with the most recent. Include details of host lab, supervisor, dates, brief description of project and your work on the project. (Maximum 400 words for each experience)

This section is to provide other information and achievements about yourself that you wish to bring to our attention and that is relevant to your application to the PhD programme.

Note: you can re-size the text boxes to make them larger by using the drag handle in the bottom right hand corner of the text box.

Please note: we do not accept references from personal email accounts

We will request references from two scientists/academics who are familiar with, and who can judge your potential as a PhD student, based on:

1. Reference one: your academic registration and performance and;
2. Reference two: your research experience.

Please select your referees carefully:

Referee one: the academic performance referee must be able to confirm and to comment on your university academic registration and performance. For example, this could be a programme leader, personal tutor, academic / tutor on one of the modules you studied.

Referee two: must be able to comment on your previous research experience, for example a supervisor of a research project that you completed as part of, or outside of a degree, or from a post-degree research post

Provision of a third reference is optional, and is not required for programme eligibility or for the purposes of shortlisting.

Please ensure that your referees’ contact details, especially their email addresses, are accurate and enter only one email address per referee. We will not correct errors to referee email addresses after you have submitted your application.

Your application may be considered if references are not received by the deadline, but we will not invite any applicants to interview without both reference in place.

We will contact your referees by email as soon as you submit your application, asking them to complete an online reference form. When you submit your application please immediately contact your referees to confirm that they have received our reference request email (these emails sometimes get blocked by university security systems or end up in spam folders).

Please help your referees meet this deadline by informing them of your application, checking (before you submit your application) that they are willing and able to provide a reference by the deadline. You and your referee will receive an acknowledgement email once the reference request email has been generated, and once each reference has been submitted.

The CRUK CoL Centre values diversity, and we are committed to building an inclusive culture where all trainees can thrive. To support this, we ask applicants to share their personal diversity information.

These questions are optional. If you would rather not share something, please select “prefer not to say”. However, the more information you are willing to provide, the more effective our monitoring will be. Your personal diversity information is separated from your application. It is anonymised and is only used for reporting. All personal information will be treated in accordance with applicable data protection legislation, and the data used for statistical monitoring will be anonymised and published in a way that does not allow individuals to be identified. We collect personal diversity information under the lawful basis of legitimate interest, to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010 and monitor and promote equal opportunities in the workplace. As diversity information is special category data, we also require an additional legal basis for processing. We process diversity information under Article 9 of the UK GDPR for reasons of substantial public interest to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010 and Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 to promote and maintain equality in the workplace.

We would also like to understand better the socio-economic background of candidates that apply to our programmes, given that this can also have an impact on access to education and careers. The questions asked at the end of this section of the application form were developed in England by the Social Mobility Commission working with the Bridge Group. As with the diversity questions, these questions are optional, and the data is separated from your application, anonymised and only used for reporting. If you are not sure of the answer or if you would prefer not say, please select “I don?t know” or “Prefer not to say”.

The information you supply here will help us focus where we advertise our PhD programme in the future.

Please review your application carefully and complete any missing fields. Once all the mandatory fields are completed, you will be able to submit by clicking the submit button at the bottom of the screen.

Once you have submitted your application you will not be able to make further changes. You will be sent an email confirming that you have submitted your application.

Please note that these emails sometimes get blocked by email/ university security systems or end up in spam folders, so please check your spam/ junk folder.