Laidlaw Research and Leadership Programme 2021: scholars chosen

Laidlaw Scholarships are awarded to undergraduate first year students through a competitive process where applicants submit a proposal to undertake their own research project, or request to work on an existing project with researchers from UCL departments. 

This year, a record number of 341 first-year undergraduates competed for 26 places on UCL's branch of the prestigious programme, which runs at a number of overseas and UK universities including St. Andrew's and Durham.

Our scholars have real-world impact

The Laidlaw Programme is a brilliant opportunity for students to get involved in world leading research at an early stage of their academic career, and learn the skills that will make them into future leaders.

Nusayba Ali, a 2020 Laidlaw Scholar, provides a timely example of the impact UCL undergraduate students can have on key research areas. Her article on how pharmacists and pharmacy teams can address vaccine hesistancy, co-authored with her Laidlaw project supervisors, has recently been published by the Pharmaceutical Journal. 

Another past scholar and Arts and Humanities student, Anita Cuteanu, has also just seen the outcomes from her 2018 project accepted for publication in the British Medical Journal Open. Anita's project, “Internet influence on GP consultations”, looked at whether GP consultations online rather than in-person influenced patient outcomes.

“...Also thanks to the Laidlaw scholarship, I was offered a place on a fully-funded 4-year MRes+PhD programme in Health Data in Practice...I wanted to highlight how much of an impact this scholarship has had on my studies and career prospects overall! - Anita Cuteanu, 2018 Laidlaw Scholar. 

UCL departments that offer opportunities for Laidlaw Scholars to join their research projects also benefit, because they get a fully funded and enthusiastic junior researcher, who is driven to make a positive contribution.  

“A UCL education offers students the opportunity to carry out their own research, and the Laidlaw Research and Leadership Programme is a great example of this, enabling first year undergraduate students to contribute to our world-leading research output across all the disciplines. The programme, now in its third year has been extremely successful, providing a challenging, rewarding experience for the scholars and excellent contributions to projects for research supervisors. Dr Ruth Siddall, Academic Director of the Laidlaw Programme.

Competitive application process

Once again this year there was a large number of high quality applications so the judging panel had a difficult challenge. 

The selection process includes a requirement for the applicant to submit a 90 second video outlining their motivations for applying. This was considered alongside the application form, feedback from project supervisors, and an academic reference.  

The final group of 15 women and 11 men study a varied range of subjects including Psychology, History, Natural Sciences, Medicine, Bioscences and Economics.

The 2021 scholars

See below for the full list of this year's Laidlaw Scholars and their research projects. 

What happens next?

The scholars will immediately get stuck into leadership training activities during the 2021 summer holidays and undertake a fully funded bespoke research project under the guidance of UCL academics over a six-week period. 

Congratulations to this year’s scholars!