Precision Medicine PhD

Our goal is to develop a cohort of outstanding young scientists who can deliver the innovation of precision medicine. We will ground our research in an outstanding resource of data, much of it unique to the partnership and being curated in innovative ways. Projects will harness phenotypic data assets derived from Scotland’s outstanding electronic health record assets, providing the ability to track 5 million people across primary, secondary, tertiary and social care since 1980. The ability to link these deep phenotypes with consented cohort data gives an outstanding environment to train the next generation of PhD students to pursue bold, ambitious and enterprising research programmes in precision medicine.

The DTP will focus on research that has high impact and transformational. For instance:

• in molecular pathology: giving us radically new ways to understand the mechanism of disease
• in phenotype/genotype studies: analytical methods to optimise the transformation of genetic, genomic, and biological data into diagnostics, predictive models and therapeutics

This step-change in PhD training will be addressed by the partnership of the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. Together we aim to offer our students:

• integration within a transformational research environment
• training courses including advanced quantitative and computational methodology
• access to unique data assets

Our inter-Institutional partnership combines advances in large-scale high throughput data with deep phenotyping of important patient cohorts and whole populations with e-health records at scale.

Underpinning the DTP is an array of world-leading computational methods and know-how each of which is placed in its own fast-moving technological context.

• [DTP]: Doctoral Training Programme

Our DTP will embed researcher training within a unique environment that already supports a significant number of complementary activities. A specific opportunity for the DTP is for Scotland-wide and UK-wide collaborative programmes.

The University's Schools of Informatics and Medicine benefit increasingly from Edinburgh’s core membership of the Alan Turing Institute, which aims to drive ever-higher research quality and translation to practice.

The University of Edinburgh also hosts institutes, which aim to harness health data for patient and public benefit by setting the international standard for the safe and secure use of electronic patient records and other population-based datasets for research purposes.

The Institute's Edinburgh hub is co-located with the ESRC Administrative Data Research Centre, alongside NHS governance and a number of UK-leading informatics and bioinformatics-related enterprises at Edinburgh's BioQuarter site. The BioQuarter - immediately adjacent to Edinburgh’s major teaching hospital and major medical research institutes (including four current MRC Centres) - brings together thousands of researchers and analysts from many disciplines, utilising world class academic and clinical research facilities, to enable collaboration and accelerate the development of new drugs, diagnostic tools and medical devices.

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent.

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country

English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 6.5 with at least 6.0 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 92 with at least 20 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced (CAE) / C2 Proficiency (CPE): total 176 with at least 169 in each component.
• Trinity ISE: ISE II with distinctions in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 62 with at least 59 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS, TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE, in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

• English language requirements

Read our general information on tuition fees and studying costs:

• Fees and costs

Successful applicants who meet all necessary eligibility requirements will receive a fully funded studentship including:

• Payment of annual tuition fees.
• Stipend for each of the 4 years of the PhD (based on UKRI minimum doctoral rate).
• Research Training Support Grant of 5K per annum.
• Annual Travel Grant of £300.

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding