Funding Opportunities

students in Emmanuel College. Credit: Sir Cam

School of Biological Sciences Master's Bursary Award

Applicants to taught MPhil courses based in the School of Biological Sciences, who have received a conditional offer of admission to start in October 2025, are eligible to apply for a School of Biological Sciences Master’s Bursary Award here: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=RQSlSfq9eUut41R7TzmG6eA_AT6MN6hCilPdPcCPo_ZUM1BNU1BKUEM4VDczUjlFRUlFTjU2RUNHQyQlQCN0PWcu in support of their studies here at Cambridge, subject to eligibility criteria. The bursaries are usually about £7,500 but can be increased in exceptional circumstances to an applicant who provides a written statement explaining why they would otherwise not be able to take up the place offered and subject to them first pursuing other funding opportunities including via their current proposed Cambridge College.  

Cambridge Trust Master's Studentships

Each year, the Cambridge Trust offers a number of Cambridge Master's Studentships to enable the top-scoring applicants for one-year postgraduate study to benefit from part-cost awards. These are of a variable amount, but typically of £12,000 each towards their studies. 

Applicants for Master's study will be eligible for the studentships regardless of their fee status, and may be applying for Master's courses in any subject, provided they:

  • Apply for admission by the Postgraduate Funding deadline for their chosen course of study, and are offered conditional admission to the University of Cambridge;
  • Tick the box to apply for funding, and fill in the Cambridge Trust section of the online form, as part of their application for admission through the University’s Applicant Portal.

Applicants who have already obtained, or are about to graduate with a Master's or PhD level qualification will not be eligible.

Successful applicants will be contacted, via e-mail, between March and late-July.

Cambridge Opportunity Studentships and Get In Cambridge Studentships

Cambridge Opportunity Studentships are for Master's students from low-income households with experience of educational disadvantage who are set at the Home rate for fees. 

Get In Cambridge Studentships follow the same criteria and are reserved to address under-representation of students from Black, British Bangladeshi or British Pakistani backgrounds.

Both studentships are intended to cover University fees and living expenses when the maximum postgraduate grant / loan is taken with government student finance. For more information about postgraduate loans, please visit https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/funding/loans.

Essential Eligibility Criteria:

Applicants must not already be qualified at Master's level or higher, nor currently undertaking postgraduate study.

You must also be able to agree with the following statement, and provide evidence on request: I do not have the existing financial means (in the form of savings, assets, other awards, or an income independent of hours worked) to finance the proposed course of study.

Additional Eligibility Criteria:

In addition to the essential criteria, one or more of the following should apply to you:

  • You have Refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK.

At secondary school:

  • You were in receipt of Free Schools Meals
  • You spent time in local authority care or as a Foyer resident
  • You were a young carer with caring responsibilities for a family member who could not cope without your practical support
  • You lived in one of the most deprived areas of the country. (This is defined according to the government's IMD database. You can check your postcode ranking using the government website for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland)

At university:

  • If you started your undergraduate course prior to August 2016: You were/are in receipt of a full or partial Maintenance Grant from the UK Government as an undergraduate
  • If you started your undergraduate course after August 2016: you were eligible for a means-tested maintenance loan from the UK Student Loans Company and your residual household income was assessed as £42,620 or less
  • You are/were in the first generation of your immediate family to do an undergraduate or Masters course
  • You are/were estranged from your immediate family or care-givers
  • You are/were a full-time undergraduate with caring responsibilities for a family member who could not cope without your practical support
  • You are/were a full-time undergraduate who is/was a single parent, lone foster parent, or lone guardian of a young person who was still in full-time education
  • You are/were disrupted in your undergraduate education due to health difficulties or bereavement of an immediate family member

If there are other challenging life circumstances you feel should be taken into account, for example, educational disruption due to moving school or illness, doing paid work during full-time undergraduate study, circumstances that limited your choice of undergraduate university, an unusual route to postgraduate study, or anything else, then you may be eligible; please detail this in the relevant section on the admissions application questionnaire.

No separate application is required for this studentship, only the application to the University of Cambridge for admission, which must be submitted by the funding deadline specific to your course (please refer to the Postgraduate Course Directory). You will be asked to answer specific questions as part of the admissions application form.

The Trust’s awards period runs from March to the end of July and is an ongoing process throughout that time. The majority of the Trust’s full awards are made in March. Some partner-funded awards take longer to allocate, and sometimes when offers are declined the Trust may be able to promote reserve candidates.

Cambridge University Funding

For information on how to apply for the studentships and scholarships, please read the funding pages of the Postgraduate Admissions website.

A variety of centrally administered funding opportunities exist for graduate students. The funding pages of the Postgraduate Admissions website provide comprehensive information about how to apply for funding and a search tool which allows you to search for the competitions you are eligible for.

The deadline to submit your funding application is 7 January 2025.