King's College London

Studentship Award

Up to three 4-year fully funded ‘Joint ASTAR - King’s College London Studentships’ are available to support PhDs commencing in October 2026 (two studentships at UK Tuition Fees and one studentship at International Tuition Fees), covering tuition fees, stipend, and bench fee.

Eligibility

Applications are accepted from citizens of the UK, the EU, the USA, Canada, Latin America, and Australia.

Students must plan to commence an approved PhD project under this studentship programme in October 2026. Projects available for funding can be found in our Project Catalogue (provided below).

Students recruited to these studentships must spend a minimum of 18 months and a maximum of 24 months at an ASTAR Research Institute in Singapore with the named ASTAR supervisor(s) as part of the research and training programme.

• ASTAR Project Catalogue 26-27 - (pdf) 936 Kb

Tuition Fees

All tuition fees will be fully covered by the Studentship (at home or international rate)

Stipend

Students will receive a tax-free stipend for each year of study. Whilst at King’s College London, the stipend will be in line with the UK Research and Innovation rate (for the year 2025/26 was set at £22,780 per annum).

Bench Fees and Allowances

A Research Training Student Grant (RTSG) will be provided for research consumables and for attending UK and international conferences.

At King’s College London consumables allowance (at the Research Council rate) and consumables allowance £5,000 for 1 st and 4 th year, as well as and travel & conference allowance £300 for 1 st and 4 th year.

Whilst at ASTAR, the following allowances are provided

One-time airfare allowance: S$ 1,500; one-time settling in allowance: S$ 1,000; one-time IT allowance: S$ 800; monthly housing subsidy (for awardees staying off-campus): S$300; monthly stipend: S$ 3,600; conference allowance; medical insurance; miscellaneous research costs of the PhD work is covered by the ASTAR Research Entities and related visa costs.

Entry Requirements

Applicants must have or be predicted to obtain a high-quality BSc degree with a 1st or a high 2:1, or a master’s qualification at Merit/Distinction grade.

Students recruited to these studentships must spend a minimum of 18 months and a maximum of 24 months in Singapore at an ASTAR Research Institute with the named ASTAR supervisor on each project as part of the research and training programme.

To apply for the ASTAR and King’s College London Studentships, consult our ‘How to Apply’ guidance below.

English Language Requirements

If English is not your first language, you will be required to provide evidence that you meet the minimum English requirements of the faculty (Band D) as prescribed by the university’s English Language requirements. If you are unable to provide this confirmation before applying any offer you are made would be conditional upon you meeting these requirements prior to enrolment and no later than the 31 of August 2026.

Click here for further information on English Language Requirements

How to apply

Applicants must complete and submit an online admissions application, via the King’s Apply system.

You will need to register an account to log onto the system.

In addition to filling out the online application form, you will also be required to upload your CV and write a personal statement.

For detailed instructions on the application process and guidance on filling out the form, please download the Application Guidance document.

• astar-kcl-studentships-kings-apply-instructions-202627 - (word) 420 Kb

Application Timeline

Application Stage | Date

Application Stage

Date

Applications Open | 15 January 2026

Applications Open

15 January 2026

Applications Close | 22 February 2026, 23:59 UK Time

Applications Close

22 February 2026, 23:59 UK Time

Invitations to Interview | By 04 April 2026

Invitations to Interview

By 04 April 2026

Interviews | Week commencing 13 April 2026

Interviews

Week commencing 13 April 2026

Interview Outcomes | By 17 April 2026

Interview Outcomes

By 17 April 2026

Acceptance of studentship offer | By 01 May 2026

Acceptance of studentship offer

By 01 May 2026

If you have not received a response regarding your interview by 03 April 2026 please contact the King’s Doctoral College: doctoral-college@kcl.ac.uk .

Please do not contact the team regarding the outcome of your application before this date.

• If you have not received a response regarding your application by 20 March 2026, please contact the King’s Doctoral College: doctoral-college@kcl.ac.uk .

Do I meet the residency requirements for funding?

Please contact the Postgraduate Admissions Team to determine whether you are eligible for an award before you start the application process.

What are the academic requirements?

Applicants must have, or be predicted to obtain, a high-quality BSc degree with a 1st or a high 2:1. Alternatively, students must have a master’s qualification at Merit/Distinction grade.

How do I apply?

All applications must be submitted via the King’s Apply Portal. We will not accept any other form of application.

How many references do I need?

On your application you must provide the contact details of two academic referees.

If you feel it would be more appropriate, we can accept one reference from a non-academic research environment, e.g.: an employer from a research institution or company.

Note: academic references must list a university email address and employer referees should list the official email address of the company.

If you already have two references, you can scan and upload these directly to King’s Apply instead (note that they must be signed and on headed paper).

Note: it is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure we have received the references by deadline for references; ensure to start your application before the deadline and contact your referees to let them know we will be requesting a reference from them.

When will my referee receive notification to submit my reference?

Referees will only receive a notification to submit an applicant’s reference once the applicant has submitted their application. Referees will not be contacted whilst the application is still in progress.

When is the deadline for applications?

We will be accepting applications up until 23.59 on Sunday 22 February 2026 UK time.

Applications submitted after this date will not be considered. We advise that you do not wait to submit your application until close to the deadline, in case there are problems with uploading documents etc.

Applications missing mandatory attachments may not be considered for shortlisting.

Do I need to complete the research proposal section of the application form?

Yes. In the Research Proposal section, under the ‘Project Title or Reference’ field, please enter the funding code that corresponds to the theme in which your first-choice project is listed (see below for an example). Note that the funding codes are listed on page 2 of the Project Catalogue.

Project Title or Reference : Insert funding code: e.g., “THEME12026”.

Please then also list three projects of interest in order of preference in the free-text box under the Research Proposal section (see below for an example). This should include the number that is assigned to the project and the project title, for example:

1.1 ‘’Project Title’’

2.1 ‘’Project Title’’

Do I need to take my IELTS test before I submit my application?

You do not need to take an English Language Test before making submitting the application. However, should you be successful in gaining a studentship, this will become a condition of your offer and an IELTS test must be taken before we can make an unconditional offer.

How do I know my application is complete?

Please be sure to complete the following sections of the form with all relevant information (all questions with an asterisk are mandatory and you will not be able to submit without answering these):

If you have any questions about the King’s Apply portal, please get in touch with the Admissions Team directly via the messaging service on the portal.

• Personal Information
• Education
• Employment history (you will be able to enter up to five sets of employment information)
• The ‘Nature of work’ field allows only 50 characters, but you can upload further employment information on the references screen.
• Personal statement. Please include your personal statement in this section. You should type your personal statement directly into the Personal Statement free text box (Personal Statements uploaded onto the application as a separate PDF will not be accepted). There is a 4000-character limit, so please ensure that any text you plan to copy and paste into the box is within these limits (you should note that the Personal Statement character limit includes punctuation and spaces and so may differ from the character count in your source text).
• CV: upload a PDF copy of your CV as an attachment to the Personal Statement Section.
• References: Contact details for two academic referees or relevant employers in research institutions/companies (we will then contact your referees directly).
• Funding: In the funding section of the online application form please enter the funding code that corresponds to the theme in which your first-choice project is listed.
• Research Proposal: In the research proposal section, please enter the funding code that corresponds to the theme in which your first-choice project is listed as the ‘Project Title’. Please list three projects of interest in order of preference in the free-text box under the Research Proposal section.

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