PhD Studentship Advert Guidelines
Faculty of Medical Sciences
PHD STUDENTSHIP ADVERT GUIDANCE NOTES (FACULTY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES)
The PhD Studentship Advert Template should be used for funded PhD Studentships. These usually
include payment of tuition fees and an annual stipend (living costs).
This can include a specific project or multiple PhD projects in a broad range of areas.
CFMS FACULTY CONTACT
Your PhD studentship advert should be written following the guidelines given below. Upon
completion of the advert, please send it to your faculty contact (*see below). Faculty staff will then
check the advert to ensure that it adheres to the guidelines, and send it to the central Postgraduate
Marketing Team for posting to the websites shown below.
*Faculty Contact Details
Sarah Golightly
Faculty of Medical Sciences
E-mail: s.l.golightly@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 8683
CENTRAL ADVERTISING AND AUDITING ACENTRDVERTISING & AUDITING
The Postgraduate Marketing Team manages the posting and auditing of postgraduate funding
adverts on the University’s postgraduate funding database
www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/funding/searchfunding
The Team also undertakes a monthly audit of the funding adverts on the database to ensure that
they are up to date. This takes place on the first day of the month and involves contacting
colleagues in the schools and institutes to check whether the position has been filled or whether it
needs to be re-posted with a new closing date.
EXTERNAL ADVERTISING & AUDITING
The Postgraduate Marketing Team also promotes individual funding opportunities on two external
websites (www.Jobs.ac.uk and www.postgraduatestudentships.co.uk). Advertising multiple
studentships externally in one advert has significant cost implications and these cannot be funded by
the central Postgraduate Marketing Team. However advice and guidance will be given.
TIMESCALES
The Postgraduate Marketing Team:
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aims to get the adverts uploaded to the funding database within three working days of
receipt and within five-seven working days in busy periods.
GUIDANCE FOR COMPLETING THE STUDENTSHIP TEMPLATE
Title
Titles should:
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use title case
indicate the qualification that the funding is applicable to (eg PhD studentship or MRes plus
PhD studentship)
include an overarching subject area followed by the specific project title (if possible)
include the relevant UK Research Council’s acronym (if applicable)
EXAMPLE 1
PhD Studentship in Cell and Molecular Biosciences - Understanding how the Mucosal Layer is a
Microbial Niche within the Gut Microbiota
EXAMPLE 2
Two PhD Studentships in the Institute of Neuroscience
EXAMPLE 3
MRC MRes plus PhD Studentship in Ageing and Health - Mechanisms of Age-Related Meiotic Errors
in Oocytes
Value of award
This should include:
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the level of fees support included in the award (if appropriate)
whether there is a stipend (living/maintenance allowance) included in the award and if so,
how much is it for? Please do not simply state ‘RCUK’ rate as a potential student will not
understand what this means.
EXAMPLE 1
100% of UK/EU tuition fees paid and annual living expenses of £14,057 (full award). A partial award
covers fees at the UK/EU rate only.
EXAMPLE 2
100% of UK/EU tuition fees paid and annual living expenses of £14,057 (full award). A partial award
covers fees at the UK/EU rate only. Also significant additional funding to cover research costs and
local, national and international travel (conferences and exchanges).
EXAMPLE 3
100% of UK/EU tuition fees paid and annual living expenses of £14,057 (full award). Successful
international candidates will be required to make up the difference between the UK/EU fees and
international fees.
EXAMPLE 4
Each award is worth £18,500 per year, contributing towards your PhD tuition fees and living costs.
Total value of each award is £74,000.
Number of awards
This should include:
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how many awards are being offered or if this information cannot be given please just state
‘varies’ or leave the field blank.
Start date and duration
This should include:
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project start date
what the studentship covers, eg a three year PhD or a four year integrated Master’s plus
PhD. If the latter, then please specify which Master’s programme the candidate will study.
EXAMPLE 1
Project Start Date: September 2016
The funding covers a one year MRes in Ageing and Health followed by a three year PhD.
EXAMPLE 2
Project Start Date: January 2017
The funding covers a three year PhD.
Application closing date
Where possible please specify a specific closing date, eg 12 January 2016.
If you are including a closing date, please allow enough lead in time for the advert to be checked and
processed by the relevant faculty contact and the Postgraduate Marketing Team based on the time
scales mentioned at the beginning of this document.
Overview
Specific Studentship Project
For a specific PhD studentship project you should initially try and give a brief summary in plain
English (maximum of two sentences) explaining what the project is about by using the following key
phrases if possible:
Interested in ……? This PhD project will explore/ will investigate …….
You should then give a more detailed overview and provide details of what the candidate will be
involved in. This may include:
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hypotheses they will be investigating
theoretical underpinnings
methodology
training provided
extra details, such as whether the project involves working away from Newcastle at another
organisation or research institution
EXAMPLE 1
Interested in how pro-social behaviour can improve well-being? Helping others is widely thought to
make people feel good. This project will experimentally investigate the relationship between
behaving pro-socially and improved well-being.
Our experiments will include presenting recruited participants with economic games in which the
strategic motivation, to be seen to be co-operative, is varied. A range of tests accompanying the
trials will assess physiological and psychological measures including affective state. We predict that
giving increases measures of well-being and that these benefits may account, in mechanistic terms,
for why people may do things for the benefit of others, even when this is against their own
economic self-interest, at least in the short term.
Cross-disciplinary training will be provided in evolutionary game theory, experimental economic
methods, and cognitive and psychological testing. As well as having applied significance in terms of
showing how we may promote pro-social behaviour, the work will be of theoretical importance in
terms of understanding why humans are so co-operative.
For further information about this project please check the Institute of Neuroscience’s website. *
*It is optional to link to a more in-depth project page housed on your school or institute site.
General Studentship Projects
If you have a number of PhD studentships available in a range of broader subject areas then please
highlight the relevant research areas and include related web addresses which the Postgraduate
Marketing Team can link to if possible.
EXAMPLE 2
The Institute of Neuroscience has three PhD studentship opportunities available in the following
areas:
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Motor systems development, plasticity, function
Neural computation and network systems
Auditory neuroscience
Forensic psychiatry and clinical psychology
Visual perception and human cognition
For further information on the individual projects, please check the Institute of Neuroscience’s
website *
*A link should be provided to more in-depth information housed on the Institute’s website if
available.
Sponsor
This is the name of the research council, charity and any industrial partners who are providing the
funding. Please include the full name of the organisation and the web address for the sponsor, so
that the Postgraduate Marketing Team can include a link to the sponsor’s website in the advert.
EXAMPLE 1
Medical Research Council (MRC)
EXAMPLE 2
Wellcome Trust
Name of supervisor(s)
This should include the:
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name of the lead supervisor or names of the supervisory team
name of the school or research institute where the supervisors are based. Please also
indicate if any of the supervisors listed are external to Newcastle, ie they belong to another
university or organisation
For consistency, we use Dr (not Dr.) and Professor (not Prof.) Names should be listed: title, initials
and surname.
NB: The Postgraduate Marketing Team will automatically add web links to the relevant staff profiles
and school/institute websites. If there is a specific webpage that you would like us to link to, please
include it here.
EXAMPLE
Professor I Spyridopoulos, Institute of Genetic Medicine
Professor H Arthur, Institute of Genetic Medicine
Eligibility Criteria
Please specify the qualifications and skills required for the studentship and explicit details about who
is eligible to apply for the award. You should include:
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degree classification and degree subjects required for the project
English language requirements (if appropriate)
additional skills required for the project (such as a second language, driving licence,
experience of a particular software packages etc) and please outline why those skills are
needed
which students are eligible to apply for the award, eg UK/EU and International; UK/EU only;
non-EU International only
are the payment of fees and stipend available to all students? eg UK/EU and International;
UK/EU only; non-EU International only
if non-EU international students can apply, please state if the awards cover International
fees or if the award only covers fees at the UK/EU rate
a link to the eligibility criteria of the Research Council or external organisation (if applicable)
EXAMPLE 1
You must have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2:1 honours degree or international equivalent, in a
subject relating to the behavioural sciences, including: psychology, biological and neuroscience. A
further qualification such as an MRes is advantageous.
The award is available to UK/EU applicants only. Depending on how you meet the BBSRC’s eligibility
criteria, you may be entitled to a full or a partial award.
EXAMPLE 2
You must have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2:1 Honours degree in biomedicine, physiology,
microbiology or a related area. A further qualification such as an MSc or MRes is advantageous.
This award is available to UK/EU and international applicants. If English is not your first language,
you must have IELTS 7 with at least 6.5 in the written component, or equivalent.
How to apply
All applicants should complete the University’s postgraduate application system
www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/apply when applying for a studentship.
You may also ask applicants to send a copy of their CV and covering letter directly to you if you wish
(this is in addition to completing the application form).
You should include instructions on the following:
•programme code if you are aware of what this is (your Faculty contact can help with this)
• the programme of study students should apply to for your project. This should be listed exactly
how it appears on the online postgraduate application system to avoid confusion for prospective
students (your Faculty contact can help with this)
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studentship code (your Faculty contact can help you with this)
fields which need to be completed in the application form
•additional documents if required
EXAMPLE
You must apply through the University’s online postgraduate application system. To do this please
‘Create a new account’.
Only mandatory fields need to be completed. However, you will need to include the following
information:
• insert the programme code 8300F in the programme of study section
• select ‘PhD in the Faculty of Medical Sciences – Cancer Research' as the programme of study
• insert the studentship code CR071 in the studentship/partnership reference field
• attach a covering letter and CV. The covering letter must state the title of the studentship, quote
the studentship reference code CR071 and state how your interests and experience relate to the
project
• attach degree transcripts and certificates and, if English is not your first language, a copy of your
English language qualifications
Contact
Please provide contact details for a relevant person in the school or institute for applicants to
contact if they have any enquiries about the project. If you prefer, you can just provide an email
address. We prefer not to include postal addresses as people very rarely enquire by letter. For
consistency, we always use Dr (not Dr.) and Professor (not Prof). Names should be: title, initials and
surname.
EXAMPLE
For further details, please contact:
Dr C Schneider
Institute for Cell & Molecular Biosciences
E-mail: claudia.schneider@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 7708
Check your Advert
Please ensure that all of the required fields are complete and that your advert does not exceed 500
words. This is the limit imposed by external websites that we submit your advert to.
Keywords for External Advertising Sites
We will need to add subject keywords to your advert on our central postgraduate website,
postgraduatestudentships.co.uk and jobs.ac.uk so that it can be found in searches. Please select the
relevant keywords from the lists provided on the template by highlighting your chosen terms.
Sending to Faculty Contact
Please send your completed template to your faculty contact:
Sarah Golightly
Faculty of Medical Sciences
E-mail: s.l.golightly@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 8683