The President’s PhD Scholarships are Imperial College London’s own fully funded doctoral awards. Around 50 are given each year to new PhD applicants with an outstanding academic record, in any department of the college. The award covers full tuition fees, a stipend of £27,036 per year at the 2027/28 rate to help with living costs, and a consumables fund of £2,000 per year for the first three years. Funding lasts 3.5 years. Scholars also get professional development through the Early Career Researcher Institute.
Who can apply: the scheme has no nationality restriction; Imperial states that applications are accepted from candidates from Imperial, the UK and worldwide. The academic bar is a first-class undergraduate or integrated master’s degree, or, if your undergraduate result was not a first, a distinction in a standalone master’s degree. Imperial says it welcomes candidates with non-traditional pathways who show strong research potential, and special cases with extenuating circumstances can be considered with departmental approval. The scholarship is only for new PhD applications; students already registered for a PhD at Imperial are not eligible.
The supervisor comes first: before you apply you need a commitment from an Imperial academic who agrees to supervise you. Each supervisor may supervise only one President’s PhD Scholar at a time, so ask early whether they currently have a scholar. Imperial publishes a list of supervisors who are not available for this reason.
How to apply: there is no separate scholarship form. You submit a normal PhD application through Imperial’s admissions system and indicate in the funding section that you want to be considered for the President’s PhD Scholarship. Include a two-page personal statement that contains your research proposal, plus the transcripts and references your department requires.
Deadlines for 2027/28 entry (all at 23:59 UK time):
– Round 1: 2 November 2026, decision by 31 January 2027
– Round 2: 11 January 2027, decision by 15 April 2027
– Round 3: 1 March 2027, decision by 31 May 2027
Applying in an earlier round gives you an earlier answer, which matters if you also need time for a visa and for arranging accommodation in London. Applicants from the GCC and other countries whose degrees use a different grading scale should check with the department how their classification is assessed, since the first-class or distinction requirement is applied to the equivalent of your qualification.