Physics Bursaries & Scholarships

Every quarter, the newsletter will provide information on upcoming bursary, scholarship and funding opportunities, from undergraduates to staff in the department. 

If you think we have omitted an opportunity that might be relevant to students or staff, please feel free to contact eoin.walsh@ul.ie.

Summary Table:

The EI Electronics Women in Engineering Scholarship (Undergraduate):

• Aimed at 1^st year female students in a number of STEM courses in UL, including Mathematics common entry and Physics common entry.

• Awards 3 years of funding to 1 student (€2500 per annum)

• Deadline to apply is February 16^th, 2023.

• Niamh Hickey (4^th year Applied Physics) was the first awardee in 2020 and is willing to offer advice to anyone interested in applying (19251319@studentmail.ul.ie).

• For more information, visit: http://www.eielectronics.com/ul-Scholarship/ 

Summer Bursary Research program (Undergraduate):

• Conduct research over the summer months of your undergraduate degree (approx. 10 weeks in duration).

• A QCA ≥ 3.25 is needed to apply.

• There is a Spring deadline for this award, but we strongly encourage prospective undergraduate students to reach out to supervisors in advance.

• For more information, visit: https://www.ul.ie/scieng/news/se-summer-bursary-research-programme.

PhD Studentship – Extragalactic Star Formation (Recently completed Undergraduate/Masters):

• 4-years of funding (fees & stipend) provided by the UL Science & Engineering Scholarship Scheme.

• Supervised by Dr. Ian Clancy and Dr. David Corcoran here in the UL Department of Physics.

• To apply, email David.Corcoran@ul.ie with a one-page cover letter briefly outlining applicant suitability and motivation for the PhD research topic, and education, employment and research experience, and a CV including names and contact details of at least two referees.

• The deadline for applicants is the 13th of November, with an expected start date in January 2023.

• A note on the project from the supervisory team: Spiral arms in galaxies reveal spectacular organisation of star formation on a galactic scale. The extra-galactic star formation rate depends on stellar mass in the form of a well-behaved power law over several orders of magnitude. The existence of this Star Formation Main Sequence suggests that star formation occurs because of a single underlying and self-similar process. But is there an overarching mechanism for organised star formation, and if so, what is it? The aim of the project is to address this question, and establish if the star formation process on a galactic scale does indeed arise from such a mechanism, and establish if this is a self-organised phenomenon, a density wave phenomenon or a yet unknown phenomenon. The successful applicant will use existing and new spatial-spectral survey data to characterise the spatial-temporal evolution of star formation in galaxies. The student will test the observations against the predictions of collective star formation theory, and will model the collective star formation process using theoretical and computational methods. The student will be based at the University of Limerick but will also work with the Star Formation Group at the School of Cosmic Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. For more information, visit: https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/phd-studentship-extragalactic-star-formation/?p148327

SFI Centre for Research Training in Foundations of Data Science (4^th Year Undergraduate/Masters):

• 4-year PhD program based in UL, UCD and Maynooth.

• Includes 30 credits of modules, a group project, an individual project and a 12-week industry internship in 1st year. An individual research topic is then selected for the remaining 3 years.

• A note from Program Manager Janet Clifford: The Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research Training (CRT) in Foundations of Data Science is a doctoral training programme that will train 128 students with a world-class foundational understanding in Applied Mathematics, Statistics, and Machine Learning. The CRT is hosted across three institutions, UL, UCD, and MU, with a current student body of 113 full-time PhD students in training.

The CRT will open its fifth recruitment call through its website www.data-science.ie on the 9th of December 2022 for the September 2023 intake. Fully funded studentships (tuition and €18,500 annual stipend) are available for 4 years based at each of the host institutions.

Full programme and application details can be found here.

SFI Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence (4^th Year Undergraduate/Masters):

• 4-year PhD program based in UL, UCC, DCU, UCG and Trinity College.

• Similar to the Data Science CRT, it pairs a taught program (1st year) with a 3 month industry placement each year for the first 3 years of the program.

• 2022 deadline was 29^th February, 2023 deadline likely similar.

• For more information, visit: http://crt-ai.cs.ucc.ie/programme.html

Laura Bassi Scholarship (Master’s/PhD/Junior Academic):

• This scholarship focusses on early career academics whose research centres on neglected topics within their broader research discipline.

• Successful awardees receive funding for editorial assistance (Master’s: $750, PhD: $2,500, Junior Academic: $500)

• Calls for applications are tri-annual (Winter, Spring, and Summer) – the next application deadline is the 25th of November 2022.

• For more information, visit: https://editing.press/bassi.