Funding
By applying to ILESLA you are also being considered for funding from multiple sources. This programme is primarily jointly funded by BBSRC and NERC, two of the research councils funded by the UK Government. In addition further places are being supported by our academic and industrial partners, by employers, and by internal university sources meaning that we are able to offer up to 60 fully-funded places per year to applicants to this programme across the three admitting institutions; University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University and The Open University.
We thank our partners and the Department of Biology, the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, the Ineos Oxford Institute (IOI) for antimicrobial research, The Kavli Institute and the Kennedy Institute for offering additional scholarship support to the programme. Partner, Department or Institute scholarships may be offered to applicants who have expressed a strong interest in joining specific partners, institutes and departments.
In some cases, scholarships may be offered to successful applicants with the requirement that a student chooses a substantive doctoral project within a particular research area. For example, we award fully funded scholarships on an annual basis to students who wish to undertake doctoral projects that address the challenge of antimicrobial resistance, which are generously supported by the IOI. We also offer Open-IIC scholarships to students who are particularly interested in working on industry-linked projects.
Some candidates will receive offers without funding from the programme. These candidates may be supported by other sources of funding, including external scholarships or funding from their current employer.
In line with UKRI policy, we are able to offer a limited number of studentships to international students.
A full scholarship comprises
- course fee at the appropriate rate
- a tax-free stipend at the UKRI minimum rate (£20,780 in 2025-26) + £2000
- a Research and Training Support Grant (RTSG) to support project costs, training and travel
Supervision
All students will have a supervisory team with two or more supervisors. You will be required to undertake at least one rotation with a supervisor from the university you are admitted to as your primary or co-supervisor and to select a supervisor from this university for your substantive doctoral project. In some cases your primary supervisor will be in a non-university partner organisation such as The Pirbright Institute, Diamond Light Source or ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, depending on the topic of your research.
To be eligible to supervise an ILESLA student, the supervisor must have registered with the ILESLA programme. If you are interested in working with a supervisor who is not on the list, they will need to register with us, and submit a rotation project proposal in response to our annual call. Once a project is approved it will feature in the project booklet which is shared with students during induction. Students can only select projects submitted by supervisors in the booklet, although these can be modified or updated to suit the students' interests, and in these cases the revised project will also need to be approved.
We have a list of eligible supervisors that you can search according to Research Themes and Theme keywords. This document will be periodically updated to include supervisors who have recently registered. You can download the file at this url:
https://iles.web.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/ilesla_supervisor_list_-_searchable_-_for_website_v5.xlsx
Entry Routes
For those applying for entry in 2026 there will be one entry route regardless of the institution where you will be carrying out your research. Applications to all three universities will therefore be reviewed as a single group. This means that if you are shortlisted for interview you will normally only be interviewed once for entry into the programme. You will benefit from the same programme structure and training programme irrespective of which organisation(s) you apply to.
You can apply online for entry to the programme via the University of Oxford Graduate Admissions Course Page.
When applying, please make it clear in the "Proposed Supervisor" field, if you are applying for a place at The Open University and/or Oxford Brookes University. There is a fee to apply to the University of Oxford, however this will be waived for applicants applying only to our partner universities. You will need a fee waiver code at the point of submitting your application.
To obtain the fee waiver code, please contact the relevant institution.
Oxford Brookes contact: ilesla.oxford.brookes@brookes.ac.uk
Open University contact: ILESLA@open.ac.uk
Please note that if you use the code when applying also to Oxford, your application will not be considered for Oxford entry.
Supporting documents and information
Regardless of which institution you apply to, you will need to provide the same supporting information: Full details of this, and the instructions for the statement of purpose, can be found on the Oxford Graduate Admissions Course Page
Colleges
If applying to the University of Oxford, as part of your application you will be asked to select a college. All University of Oxford students must be affiliated with a college. Alternatively you can select "Open" on your application and we will select a college for you. A full list of colleges that accept students for our programme can be found on the course page of the main university website but the colleges below have a special "partner" status within the programme as they provide additional support to the programme in the form of partial scholarships or access to facilities. All students registered at Oxford Brookes University or The Open University will be offered an affiliation with Linacre College, which will provide the opportunity to participate in college social activities and to access college dining and sports facilities.
Brasenose
Jesus
Linacre
Magdalen
Mansfield
Queen's
Reuben
St Cross
St Hugh's
St John's
University
Wolfson
Further information on the application process at the University of Oxford:
How to apply to the University of Oxford:
- Submit your application through the secure online graduate application form.
- The Programme Code (or course code ) is "R33_1" for the full-time option or "R33_9P1" for the part-time option. You will need this for the online application form. This is not the same as the studentship code.
Although we accept applications for part-time study, we are unable to offer this option to candidates who need a visa to study in the UK.
