iCASE studentships

The Medical Research Council has awarded Oxford 8 industrial collaborative (iCASE) DPhil studentships starting October 2025. These are available across various departments in the Medical Sciences Division.

Each MRC Enterprise studentships will provide full University fees (period of fees liability, typically three years), a UKRI-level stipend with £2,500 per year enhancement (four years),  a research training support grant (RTSG) of £5,000 per year (four years) and a travel allowance of £300 per year (four years).

There are 23 projects which students can choose to apply for across the Medical Sciences Division, including 3 within NDCN, and only 8 DPhil studentship places. The admission process is highly competitive and will in most cases involve two rounds of interviews for those reaching the second stage of the selection process.

Our department’s iCASE projects are listed below:

• Hunting for injured nerves: Discovering diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers for painful nerve injury using targeted binding domain libraries from the shark immune system

  Lead supervisor:  Dr Alexander Davies

  Commercial partner: Elasmogen Limited

• Rapid MRI scanning for population-level neuroimaging

  Lead supervisor:  Prof. Aaron T. Hess

  Commercial partner: Siemens Healthineers

• Improving TMS-EEG acquisition for clinical populations

  Lead supervisor:  Prof. Charlotte Stagg

  Commercial partner: Welcony (Magstim Company Ltd and MagstimEGI)
  
  

If you are interested in applying for an iCASE DPhil studentship place for one of the above projects, please read the information below.

How to apply for iCASE

You should complete a standard DPhil application, stating the name of the project you would like to be considered for and the supervisors’ names in the relevant application sections. There is no need to include a project proposal with your application as you are applying for a studentship for a specific project. 

How to apply for both iCASE and ALSO standard DPhil admission

You are allowed to submit one application for both an iCASE application and a standard DPhil application. However, please note that for a standard DPhil application, you must secure the support of a prospective supervisor for your project before applying. For more information about this, please see the section on our prospective students' page about finding a supervisor.

When completing your application form, state both your own project title and the iCASE project you are applying for. In the supervisors’ names’ section, list your proposed DPhil supervisor(s) and include the word iCASE. Once received, your application will be considered for both iCASE and standard DPhil admission at the same time.