Translational Neuroscience - Support and Supervision

Funding support

Between 2020 and 2024 (i.e. five cohorts) we will be recruiting six fully funded students each year.  Five studentships are funded by Wellcome and one is funded by a 'College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine Translational Neuroscience Scholarship'.The studentships are fully funded for four years and provide

  • tuition fees
  • generous student stipend
  • generous research costs 
  • travel to scientific meetings 
  • training
  • post-PhD transition

Student support

Student wellbeing is very important to us and we have a structure in place to ensure that students are supported throughout the programme. Multiple people will be available to provide advice, support and mentorship.

  • During year 1, the Director responsible for delivering first year taught element will be your year 1 mentor.
  • In years 2-4, students have a thesis committee which includes their PhD supervisors and an independant thesis chair.
  • During year 2-4, students will also have a nominated PhD programme Director as a mentor.
  • Our student community is incredibly supportive, both within cohort and between cohorts. The current students organise monthly journal club which brings together all PhD students on the programme. We also have an annual programme retreat, which brings together all students and Directors.
  • In order to provide a supportive environment, our directors and supervisors will receive mental health first aid training.

Programme Leadership

This cross-discipline programme in translational neuroscience will be led by six outstanding researchers representing fundamental, clinical and human research across the lifespan at the University of Edinburgh.

Directors

Advisory Panels

In addition, the Directors will be advised by internal and international scientific advisory panels also representing a mixture of clinical and fundamental research, and inlcuding foudnign Directors of the programme.

Internal (all University of Edinburgh and all are founding Directors of the programme): Ian Deary, Professor of Differential Psychology, Charles ffrench-Constant, Professor of Multiple Sclerosis Research, Joanna Wardlaw, Professor of Applied Neuroimaging

International: Professor Sumantra Chatterji, Director, National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, India; Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg, Director, Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford; Professor Jonathan Rosand, Medical Director, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, USA

Supervisors

Our PhD supervisory PI pool is large with over 80 researchers, 30 of whom are clinically active. This pool is dynamic and constantly evolving. This provides students with a wide range of internationally leading scientific expertise whose interests span the life-course. As an example, you can view a copy of last year's supervisor pool here; this will likely change slightly as some colleagues leave the University or decide not to take on new students for a particular year, and other colleagues join the pool. 

When students develop their PhD project towards the end of year 1 they will talk to potential supervisors and, with assistance, they will assemble a supervisory team which includes basic and clinical researchers. They will also have a Thesis Chair, who is independant of your PhD project and acts as an advisor and someone they can turn to if they experience problems, and a Mentor chosen from among the programme directors.