Postgraduate research opportunities

We offer several postgraduate degrees covering a wide range of research interests.

We are a leading UK biological sciences department, along with our sister Institute of Evolutionary Biology. Together with the rest of the School of Biological Sciences, we rated 5A in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).

Research opportunities

Postgraduate opportunities in the two institutes cover a broad, interdisciplinary range of research, with study organisms ranging from viruses to vertebrates. Our research covers:

  • Ecology and behaviour
  • Evolutionary and population genetics
  • Parasitology
  • Immunology
  • Genomics

The institutes provide a lively intellectual and social environment and, at any one time, there are around 60 PhD students and up to 15 Masters student, with about 30% from overseas.

Available degrees

Three higher degrees are available by research:

  • PhD (three or four years)
  • MPhil (two years)
  • MSc by Research (one year).

Wellcome Trust four-year PhD programme in Hosts, Pathogens and Global Health

MSc in Quantitative Genetics and Genome Analysis

Funding and studentships

Each year the Institute receives up to eight PhD studentships from the UK research councils to support postgraduate study in the listed subject areas. EU residents who are not UK nationals are only eligible for the fees component of these studentships and receive no subsistence support.

In addition, there may be funding for specific projects, which will be advertised on our website and by individual supervisors.

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