UCL Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology

How to apply and what studentships are available?

The next intake of students will be in September 2013. Students will spend the first year learning a wide range of neuroscience techniques by doing 3 month projects in different laboratories, before choosing a full research project and supervisor for the subsequent 3 years. Projects available cover the whole range of neuroscience, from molecular biology through cellular mechanisms to systems neuroscience and imaging.

Up to six PhD studentships, with a stipend starting at £22,278, will be available. These also pay fees at the EU rate, research costs to the laboratory and provide funds for travel to conferences or courses. Applicants should have, or expect to get, at least an upper 2nd class degree in any area of Biological or Physical Sciences (the course allows conversion to neuroscience from a physical sciences background). Non-UK applicants may apply, and receive the normal stipend etc., except that fees will only be paid at the EU rate (see Detailed instructions for more details)

To apply we need to receive a CV, a statement of why you want to do the PhD and at least two academic references, all e-mailed to NeuroPhD@ucl.ac.uk. Before you apply you must read these Detailed instructions on how to apply.

Any questions not answered on that page should be sent to David Attwell at d.attwell@ucl.ac.uk

The deadline for receiving applications and references is January 7th, 2013.  Interviews are expected to be at the end of January 2013.

Please note that you must activate your referees to send their references; we don't do that for you.

Structure of the First Year of the 4 Year PhD

The first year has 3 main components, compulsory courses, optional courses and (occupying most of the time) three 3 month laboratory placements spent doing research and learning techniques.

Compulsory Courses

These consist of:

Optional Courses

These consist of:

The following Neuroscience Courses:

Journal clubs in the rotation labs

The Laboratory Placements

Three of these are done, chosen from labs working in the broad areas of Molecular Neuroscience, Cellular Neuroscience, and Systems and Imaging Neuroscience. Students must choose 3 placements covering at least 2 of these broad areas (in order to avoid over-specialization in the first year). For example, students might do a placement in one lab which they think they might want to do their PhD research in, one in a similar lab for comparison, and one in a lab studying something quite different to gain experience in another area. Students doing these placements often publish papers on their work, or present it at scientific meetings.

For information on supervisors and projects refer to the supervisors tab

Assessment

Student progress during the first year is assessed by:

(i) exams on the Topics in Neuroscience course, the Ethics of Animal Experimentation course and on the Statistics course
(ii) a write-up and 10 minute oral presentation on each lab placement
(iii) their placement supervisor’s assessment of their work
(iv) their contribution to journal clubs they attend
(v) the writing of a research plan outlining their proposed PhD project for the subsequent 3 years.

FOUR YEAR PhD PROGRAMME IN NEUROSCIENCE AT UCL

How well do the students in the programme do scientifically?

Scientific publications

As of April 2007, the students going through the programme since 1996 have published a total of 251 journal papers since entering the programme, with 28 (11%) high profile papers in Nature family journals, Science, Cell or Neuron.

Five years after starting the programme, the 15 students in the first three years’ entry had published 80% more papers/student than the average of all 123 three year PhD students recruited to the same departments at the same time. One might hypothesise, however, that this superiority of the 4 year students could reflect the 3 year PhD students being less selected or working with weaker supervisors. To assess whether the 4 year programme confers particular benefits, we therefore carried out tougher comparisons, that were not confounded by the inclusion of weaker supervisors who we do not allow onto the programme, or by the selection bias inherent in our admission process. We did this as follows.

First we removed supervisor bias, by comparing the output of students in our programme with the output of matched 3 year PhD students who did a PhD in the same lab at approximately the same time (all except 5 of the 66 1996-2004 students could be matched). The results are plotted in Figure 1 as absolute number of papers, and in Figure 2 as the relative productivity of 4 and 3 year students (1 is added to the number of papers before taking the ratio to avoid divisions by zero). From 7 years after starting, the productivity of 4 year students increases significantly (Fig. 2) above that of 3 year PhD students with the same supervisors. Students in the first 3 entry cohorts have now received 2621 citations of their papers, compared with 1421 citations of the papers of matched 3 year students in the same labs (84% more).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Secondly, to eliminate effects of the higher selection to which our students were subjected, we compared the output of our 4 year students, with the output of students who we made an offer to but who chose to take up a place on a 3 or 4 year PhD elsewhere. This ensures that the comparator students were viewed by our committee as being at least as good as the accepted students. The results (Figure 3) show a significantly higher output, from 7 years after starting the course, by our 4 year students than by students who rejected our offer.

Figure 3

We conclude that going through the first year of the 4 year PhD adds significant long-lasting value to the students’ scientific training.

Career Path after the PhD

Most of the students follow a career in research. As of 2007, of the 37 students who have obtained their PhD, 29 (78%) went on to post-doc positions, 6 went to science-related jobs (drug companies, scientific administration, patent agency or management consultancy) and 2 left science, so overall 95% (35/37) took up positions using their science. The earlier cohorts are now starting to obtain permanent academic positions or Career Fellowships: one is a lecturer at the Royal Vet College, 3 are Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellows at UCL, one has a 5 year Faculty position at EBRI (Rome), one is an MRC CDF in Leicester, one is a Wellcome RCDF at UCL, two have permanent positions in Edinburgh.

Information on supervisors and projects