* Media and Cultural Studies
* Film and TV Studies
* Film, Digital and Media Production
* Music, Music Theatre and Musical Composition

The scholarships will be worth the equivalent amount of the Home/EU fee in the relevant year for full-time students (at present £3,466), or pro-rata for part-time students, and will be awarded for three years for full-time students, or for an equivalent or relevant period of time for part-time and current students. Applications will be judged on academic merit and personal need.

Eligibility

Applicants must:

* have been offered a place on a research degree programme in the School of Media, Film and Music in one of the areas listed above
* submit their research proposal and a statement of personal circumstances with their application
* commence the degree in October 2011 (awards cannot be deferred to subsequent years)

Timetable

By 14 March 2011: Deadline for all applications to be received
Week beginning 11 April 2011: Applicants notified of the outcome of their application by email

Further information

For further information on the scholarships please contact Ms Sarah Maddox
Tel: +44 1273 873525
Email: s.maddox.ac.uk

The ability to migrate is an essential feature of most animal cells. During development, motion of cells is required for morphogenesis (e.g. gastrulation, organogenesis). In adult animals, cell motility plays an important role in normal physiology (e.g. to combat infection) and disease (e.g. cancer metastasis). Although cell motility has been intensely studied, the overwhelming majority of the research effort has so far focused on just one mechanism of locomotion, prevalent when cells are cultured on glass substrates: lamellipodial-based migration. However, when migrating in 3D environments, cells can utilise other modes of motility in addition to lamellipodial motility. An increasing number of studies point to the importance of blebbing motility which is based on the formation of blebs at the leading edge. Blebs are quasi-spherical membrane protrusions that grow and disappear in minutes. They are initially devoid of F-actin but after bleb growth stops, an actin-rich cortex regrows under the membrane. Blebbing motility is essential for some embryonic cells during development. White blood cells can migrate using bleb-like protrusions when placed in 3D matrices. Some metastatic cancer cells can use blebbing motility to escape anti-tumour treatments, which block lamellipodial motility by targeting protease activity. Other tumour cells use blebs to cross the endothelium to invade tissues.

For blebbing to be translated into movement, cells need to exert forces on the extracellular environment and translocate their mass. During lamellipodial motility, cell-body translocation is achieved by contraction of the cell rear coupled to adhesion of the lamellipodium to the substrate and forward protrusion.. In contrast, hardly anything is known about the sequence of events leading to motion in blebbing motility. Whether or not blebs actually adhere to the substrate is unknown. However, since blebbing motility is much more efficient when cells are sandwiched between two surfaces, this suggests that pushing forces against the substrate, in addition to pulling on adhesions, could be involved. Little is known about F-actin cortex dynamics and its regulation during blebbing motility.

In summary, our understanding of blebbing motility lags far behind that of lamellipodial motility. This proposal aims to explore the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying bleb-based migration, an important yet understudied mode of cellular motility. Using a cell line that uses bleb to locomote (Walker carcinosarcoma cells), we will focus on two main objectives:

1) Understanding cell body translocation during blebbing motility in confined environments
2) Investigating the molecular mechanisms of movement in blebbing motility

University College London is situated in the heart of London and is consistently ranked in the top 30 universities worldwide. The London Centre for Nanotechnology has state-of-the-art facilities and has significant expertise in surface micropatterning for live cell culture, scanning probe microscopy, and optical microscopy of living cells. Strong links with the biology departments of University College London make this project truly multi-disciplinary.

Funding notes
Candidates should have a strong academic record: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Molecular Cell Biology with a first or an upper class second. This project involves a significant experimental component and previous experimental research experience is desirable. Research experience in cell culture, molecular biology, and fluorescence microscopy is a plus. The stipend is of the order of £15k per year and tuition fees will be covered. Funding is available to UK and EEA candidates. Interviews will occur on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

Suitably qualified candidates interested in performing cutting edge research in a multidisciplinary scientific environment in order to understand blebbing motility should send their CV to Dr Guillaume Charras (g.charras[ at ]ucl.ac.uk, http://www.london-nano.com/our-people/academics/guillaume-charras). Interviews will take place on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

Your entry into the scholarship competition will require your acceptance onto the Doctoral Programme. Students who want to be considered for this scholarship competition should submit their postgraduate
application by 31 August 2009

at the latest. You can complete your Postgraduate Application in hardcopy or online at http://pgapps.nottingham.ac.uk.

Indicate that you are interested in this scholarship in the personal details section of the online postgraduate application form or section 3 of the hardcopy postgraduate application form. In response to the question ‘how do you expect to pay for you studies’ you need to state ‘ICCSR Second Round Scholarship applicant’.

You should also submit, with your application, your research proposal, two academic references, academic transcripts and English language (if required). Applicants should be available to begin their doctoral studies in September 2009.

Scholarship applications will be evaluated on the basis of former qualifications, academic background, references and research proposal. All of the documentation relating to this must be submitted by the scholarship deadline of 31 August 2009.

Your doctoral studies will be supervised by two academic members of staff (at least one of which will be a member of the ICCSR team) and therefore please ensure that a member of the ICCSR academic team is currently working in the area you are interested in studying. At this late stage candidates who have already entered into correspondence with a potential supervisor are more likely to be successful.

To give your application the best chance of success, then please pay particular attention to the following:
? The relevance of your project to your potential supervisors research interests
? The suitability of your topic for study at postdoctoral level
? The feasibility of completing your research within the timescales of a PhD
? The practicality of your research plans particularly with respect to the access you might be able to secure for data collection.
Further guidance on the application process, preparation of a research proposal and English language requirements are available on the doctoral programme pages of the Business School website. Further information about the ICCSR is available from the ICCSR website.

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London is one of the largest and most advanced departments in mechanical engineering in the UK. We were the top-rated Department of Mechanical Engineering in the recent Research Assessment Exercise 2008, held by the UK Government.

Description:

Applications are invited for a research studentship in the field of fluid mechanics, leading to the award of a PhD degree. The post is supported by a bursary and fees for a student originating from the European Union.

Multiphase flows, conceived as flows involving a mixture with two or more phases, are encountered in many of our day to day activities. Numerous industrial and energy conversion processes are based on multiphase mixtures. Multiphase flows are encountered as living cells in our body, as rain and snow, but unfortunately also as a part of our environmental problems e.g. particles in the air, photochemical smog, erosion and land slides.

The work in this project is aimed at fundamentally understanding how fluid flows interact with particles, by deriving and employing computational models, interpreting and understanding results, and developing novel theories. You will be directly involved in applying and developing computational algorithms for direct numerical simulations of flows including particles and interpreting the results of such simulations.

You will be an enthusiastic and self-motivated person who meets the academic requirements for enrolment for the PhD degree at Imperial College. Suitable candidates should have a background in Mechanical or Chemical Engineering, Computing, Physics, Mathematics or a related field, an enquiring and rigorous approach to research, and have a strong interest in computer modelling. Training will be given in computational fluid mechanics, computer programming, and multiphase flow modeling.

To apply: For further details of the post contact Dr Berend Van Wachem, email: b.van-wachem@imperial.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0) 20 7594 7030. Interested applicants should send an up-to-date curriculum vitae to Berend Van Wachem on the above e-mail address.

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/mechanicalengineering

Who can Apply?
Any student applying for a taught full-time postgraduate MSc course in the Faculty of Engineering with a confirmed offer of a place for the next academic intake (September or January).

Selection Process
Selection is by application only and applicants must:

* Have a good academic record
* Provide a statement of 500 words in support of your application.

Submitting an Application
In order to apply for a scholarship, you are required to fill in and submit a Scholarship Application Form:

* Engineering Scholarship Application Form – International Students (PDF) 32k
* Engineering Scholarship Application Form – Home/EU Students (PDF) 32k

The application must be typed and printed. We cannot consider incomplete applications or applications received after the deadline.

Application Deadlines
September 2009 Intake
31st July 2009 for Home/EU and International students.

January 2010 Intake
30th November 2009 for Home/EU and International students.

For more information, please visit the official announcement page.

We now plan to build on this success and to take the University into the next stage of its research development by offering up to 32 new fully-funded PhD studentships in a range of subjects that have been identified as areas of world-class and internationally excellent research.

Current opportunities

* Health and life sciences
* Business and management
* Environment and technology
* Creative arts, culture and media
* Law, Education, Humanities and Social Sciences

For more information, please visit this page.

Overseas students are eligible to apply, but will be liable to pay the difference between home/EU and overseas fees. Note that fees are subject to change annually throughout the programme of study.

The studentship is expected to start on 01 October 2009.

The Centre for Informatics Research contains a number of research centres and undertakes research across a broad range of areas in computing and informatics. These include: bioinformatics; computer security and digital forensics; data mining; e-Democracy and e-Government; e-Health; emergent computing (optimisation, computer games & information retrieval); human-computer interaction; information society; information visualization; interaction design; knowledge management; mobile and distributed computing; pervasive adaptation; social informatics; and software reuse.

Details of the research areas and research centres can be found at http://www.cir.soc.napier.ac.uk/

Applicants should hold a First Class or Upper Second Class Honours, or Masters, degree in a discipline relevant to the area of study.

Applicants should submit a clear proposal for their research programme that demonstrates an understanding of the background to the area and outlines the questions that the applicant is interested in researching.

Candidates whose first language is not English must meet the University’s English language requirements.

An application form (RD1 form) and more general details on research can be found at this page.

Please send all formal applications, a research proposal, a CV and a completed “Supplementary Personal Information Form” and “Tuition Fee Classification Questionnaire” 01 August 2009 to:
Caroline Graham, Research Office, Edinburgh Napier University, Room 423, Craighouse Campus, Edinburgh, EH10 5LG Email: c.graham[ at ]napier.ac.uk Phone: 0131 455 6132

Informal enquiries can be made to Michael Smyth, Reader, m.smyth[ at ]napier.ac.uk, Phone: 0131 455 2733

Closing date: 01 August 2009

Commencing 1 October 2009 for 3,5 years

A PhD studentship is available for developing molecular dynamics and/or Monte-Carlo simulations of an ion-channel, explicitly including a relatively small patch of surrounding membrane and exterior water. The work will lead to a PhD in Engineering supervised by Dr Igor Khovanov, but will involve close collaboration with the departments of Physics (Prof M. P. Allen) and Chemistry (Prof P. M. Rodger) through the Centre for Scientific Computing. The successful applicant will have the opportunity to get involved with the state-of-the-art computational techniques, in particular molecular dynamics, as well as with high-performance parallel computing. The work involves close collaboration with Lancaster University and Rush Medical Center (Chicago), as well as the analysis of experimental data from Oxford, Rush, Groningen, and Chapel Hill. There will be opportunities for travel to conferences and between the participating centres.

The studentship is a part of joint Lancaster-Warwick project “Nonlinear dynamics of selectivity, conductivity, and gating in biological ion channels” aimed at cracking the enduring problem of how ions permeate through ion channels in biological membranes. The importance of progress in this area can hardly be over-estimated, given its centrality to physiological processes at the cellular level and that that most drugs are targeted directly or indirectly at ion channels. The investigations bring new ideas from non-equilibrium physics to focus on long-standing problems that are of central importance in biology.

This studentship has been funded by EPSRC. The studentship is available to UK, EU and International candidates. However, funds are only available to cover UK/EU Tuition Fees. International candidates (outside EU) would be required to pay the difference between UK/EU Tuition Fees and International Tuition Fees.

You must have a good honours degree in Engineering, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science or similar. You should have a strong interest in computer simulations and program development.

Informal enquires may be made to Dr Igor Khovanov, e-mail: i.khovanov[ at ]warwick.ac.uk

Applicants are invited for an ESRC studentship starting September 2009. The normal ESRC grant applies (full fees and maintenance), with an additional supplement of £2000 p.a. The studentship follows a 1+3 format: one year of Masters research training and three years on the PhD programme. Please note that part-time studentships are not available.

All UK citizens are eligible to apply, plus EU citizens who satisfy ESRC residential requirements. Applicants must have a good honours degree. Candidates apply (see link below) via the Graduate School in Social and Political Science for the doctoral programme in Science and Technology Studies.

The studentship is attached to a collaborative project between the University of Edinburgh and The Scottish Government. The broad aim of this project is to provide insights into how best to promote science engagement in Scotland. Science engagement (SE) is understood to encompass activities seeking to increase public interest and participation in science and technology and related social and ethical issues, with different stakeholders having often differing agendas. By auditing existing SE activities, and conducting supplementary qualitative research with potential and actual audiences, the project seeks to establish the reach and impact of these activities, recognizing that the diverse publics may have quite different perspective on and experiences of them.

The successful candidate will join a thriving community of staff and students doing related research in ISSTI, and receive highly rated training through the Graduate School in Social and Political Science. They will also have the benefit of Scottish Government activities aimed at familiarising collaborative students with the policy world and building their skills in knowledge transfer. The project will be undertaken in cooperation with the Edinburgh Beltane, one of the six UK Beacons for Public Engagement.

Candidates should contact:

Dr Wendy Faulkner
w.faulkner[ at ]ed.ac.uk
0131 650 4069

to discuss their application. Applications are due by 6 July 2009.

Further information, please visit this page.

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.