Postgraduate research

Funded opportunities

Listed below are the funded studentship opportunities which are currently accepting research student applications.

College of Life Sciences

Please read the studentship adverts for eligibility criteria, funding and application process.

Molecular and Cell Biology: Understanding the Complexities of Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ) DNA Repair

  • UK applicants only
  • Supervisors: Dr Amanda Chaplin and Professor Thomas Schalch
  • Start date: 22 September 2025
  • Closing date: 16 July 2025 (interviews 18 July 2025)

Cardiovascular Sciences: MLTC related chromatin remodelling and dysregulated iron homeostasis as the basis for the Obesity Paradox

  • Supervisors: Professor Gavin Murphy, Professor Veryan Codd, Dr Tom Webb, Charles Solomon, Dr Weiqi Liao
  • Start date: 22 September 2025 (latest start 5 January 2026)
  • Closing date: 30 June 2025

Cardiovascular Sciences: Exploring how people living with chronic kidney disease are managed in primary care

  • Supervisors: Dr Matthew Graham-Brown and Dr Courtney Lightfoot
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 30 June 2025

Cardiovascular Sciences: Understanding the prevalence of sleep apnoea and related dialysis specific factors.

  • Supervisors: Daniel March and Dr Matthew Graham-Brown
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 14 July 2025

Cardiovascular Sciences: Interstitial responses in glomerular diseases

  • Supervisors: Jonathan Barratt, Haresh Selvaskandan and Roisin Thomas 
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date:13 July 2025

Cardiovascular Sciences: Telomere length and vascular disease, investigating the role of gene expression through Machine Learning

  • Supervisor: Dr Christopher P Nelson
  • Start date: 22 September 2025
  • Closing date: 21 July 2025

British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence  PhD studentships

  • Two studentships from five projects
  • Start date: September 2025 or January 2026
  • Closing date: 18 July 2025

Cancer Studies:Targeting macrophage-epithelial interactions as drivers of tumour initiation in inflammatory liver disease.

  • Supervisors: Dr Ed Jarman and Professor Karen Brown
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 30 June 2025

Cancer Studies: Dual-Liquid Biomarker Profiling to Predict Drug Resistance in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.

  • Supervisors: Dr Emmanuel Acheampong and Professor Jacqui Shaw
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 30 June 2025

Cancer Studies: Inferring the evolutionary history of premalignant mesothelioma to identify drugable bottlenecks for therapy and prevention

  • Supervisor: Professor Dean Fennell
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 18 July 2025

Cancer Studies: A multimodal fine-funded foundation model to support precision medicine of mesothelioma

  • Supervisor: Professor Dean Fennell, Professor Hiuyu Zhou, Professor Hongyu Zhou
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 20 July 2025

School of Healthcare: Artificial Empathy (UK applicants only)

  • Supervisors: Professor Jeremy Howick, Professor Simon Gay, Dr Amber Bennett-Weston
  • Start date: 22 September 2025  or 5 January 2026
  • Closing date: 15 August 2025

Molecular and Cell Biology PhD for January 2025 Master's students

  • Available for 2026 entry for students who register on the University of Leicester Master's MSc Cancer Cell and Molecular Biology or MSc Molecular Genetics January 2025 intake.

College of Life Sciences studentship

  • Supervisors: To be decided by applicant
  • Start date January 2026
  • Closing date 30 September 2025

Self funded projects

Open to overseas applicants who can fund their own study or hold their own external sponsorship. For further information about the available projects please click on the subject page links.

Projects open until filled unless stated

Population Health Sciences 

  • Dr Rupert Major: Patient support for decision making in relation to arterio-venous fistula formation before dialysis and ligation after a successful transplant: a mixed-methods study (open to UK and overseas)
  • Professor Pratik Choudhary: Evaluating the ethnic differences of physical activity on blood glucose
  • Louise Hull: Identifying research priorities to advance the application of implementation science to lifestyle intervention research
  • Dr Tim Lucas: To understand how women’s health during pregnancy is affected by heatwaves and how 24-hour behaviours and technological interventions can reduce these risks
  • Dr Claire Meek: The role of 24-hour behaviours in optimising the clinical management of diabetes in pregnancy
  • Dr Thomas Wilkinson: Optimising the measurement of muscle and physical function in clinical trials of people living with obesity

Respiratory Sciences

  • Dr John E. Pearl: Survey of clinical non-tuberculous mycobacteria isolates for mycobacteriophages: their presence, diversity and potential role in disease
  • Dr Natalie Garton: Rhodococcus equi lipid bodies: Targeting the pathogen’s fat reserves for infection control
  • Professor Andrea Cooper: Stratification of TB risk by immunophenotyping and expression of key diagnostic markers
  • Professor Galina Mukamolova: Development of novel therapeutic strategies to target Mycobacterium tuberculosis virulence

Healthcare

  • Professor Joseph Manning: Reducing pressure injury in critically Ill hospitalised infants, children and young people: An intervention bundle development and feasibility testing study
  • Professor Joseph Manning: Paediatric to Adult intenSive care tranSition for chronicAlly critically ill younG pEople: The PASSAGE Study
  • Dr Sion Scott: An intervention to facilitate deprescribing for people with intellectual disability
  • Professor David Wright: PhD in Pharmacy Practice - Longitudinal Placements within the Undergraduate Pharmacy Degree: Defining the value

College of Science and Engineering

Studentships will show here as and when available.

Mathematics: Studying Tipping Points and Noise-Induced Transitions in the Climate System with rare event simulation techniques

  • Supervisor: Dr. Francesco Ragone and  Professor Valerio Lucarini
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 30 June 2025

Computer Science: Unravelling Organoid Heterogeneity and Drug Response with a Novel Foundation Model

  • Supervisor: Professor Huiyu Zhou
  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 3 August 2025

Computer Science: Development of multi-modality learning techniques for early chemical anomaly detection

Supervisor: Professor Huiyu Zhou and Dr Rebecca Cordell
Start date: 22 September 2025
Closing date: 31 July 2025

Chemistry: Direct recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries Using Novel Nanoemulsions

  • Supervisor: Dr Jake Yang
  • Start date: 22 September 2025
  • Closing date: 27 July 2025

EPSRC DigitalMetal CDT studentships

  • Start: 25 September 2025
  • Closing date: 31 July 2025

Geography and Geology: Target Doctoral Training Programme

  • Start date: 1 October 2025
  • Closing date: 13 July 2025

Computer Science: Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTA)

  • Various projects
  • Start date: January 2026
  • Closing Date: 16 July 2025

College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities

Funded projects will be listed here when available.

College of Business

Fee waivers available at UK or overseas fee levels

The waivers will be awarded to the top full-time, on-campus applicants to our PhD in Economics and PhD in Management as part of the regular recruitment process for the 2025/26 academic year.

For the PhD in Economics, only applications submitted by 30 June 2025 will be considered for a fee waiver for September 2025 start, which is the programme’s sole intake period for the 2025/26 academic year.

For the PhD in Management, applications submitted by 30 June 2025 will be considered for a fee waiver for the September 2025 start.  Applications received after this date may be considered for a fee waiver for the January or May 2026 intake.

To apply please refer to the Economics and Management web pages for application advice and links to the online application system. Please complete and upload your research proposal form and all requested supporting documents with your application.

 

Please note:

Applicants holding offers will have already been considered for the fee waivers and should not re-apply

The fee waivers are not available to current PhD students at Leicester.

Research Council Studentships

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