The Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences (NMES) is offering five fully-funded studentships for PhD candidates from the LGBTQ+ community living in – or holding the sole nationality of – the 65 countries where people are criminalised for their sexuality or transgender identity.
The scheme will fund students from October 2024 in any of our postgraduate degrees across our five departments. We will be offering five new places each year rising to a cohort of 20 by 2027.
The studentship would include:
- Free tuition for four years
- A stipend and a Research Training Support Grant (RTSG) provision equivalent to existing studentship schemes in NMES.
- For students facing financial hardship, on a case by case basis funding will be provided to cover the student's initial travel costs, the NHS surcharge and other incidentals incurred by successful applicants as part of their initial relocation.
The scheme is open to candidates who identify as homosexual, bisexual, and transgender resident in any of the countries where people are criminalised for their sexuality or transgender identity. It would give priority to students from the 12 countries which apply the death penalty for LGBTQ+ people, who are at risk of and/or have suffered extreme persecution, extreme discrimination, or execution due to the laws and/or society they live in, and who do not have the means or opportunity by which they might reasonably be expected to be able to escape that society independently.
Student resident in the following countries can apply:
- Afghanistan*
- Algeria
- Bangladesh
- Brunei*
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Chad
- Comoros
- Dominica
- Egypt
- Eritrea
- Eswatini
- Ethiopia
- Ghana
- Grenada
- Guinea
- Guyana
- Indonesia
- Iran*
- Iraq
- Jamaica
- Kenya
- Kiribati
- Kuwait
- Lebanon
- Liberia
- Libya
- Malawi
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mauritania*
- Morocco
- Myanmar
- Namibia
- Nigeria*
- Oman
- Pakistan*
- Palestine
- Papua New Guinea
- Qatar*
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Samoa
- Saudi Arabia*
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Solomon Islands
- Somalia*
- South Sudan
- Sri Lanka
- Sudan
- Syria
- Tanzania
- The Gambia
- Togo
- Tonga
- Tunisia
- Turkmenistan
- Tuvalu
- Uganda*
- United Arab Emirates*
- Uzbekistan
- Yemen*
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
*Death penalty country – students from these countries would be prioritised due to the extreme persecution and discrimination homosexual, bisexual and transexual people are at risk of experiencing, both in their local community and via the judicial system, which can result in their execution.
We are committed to ensuring the safety of applicants to the scheme throughout the application process, and have put in place a robust process to anonymise all applications.
Application details
- Applicants must apply to one of our PhD programme via King’s Admissions Portal.
- A full list of degrees is available on the NMES Graduate School page – with details of each course and application criteria on individual course pages
- To apply for the Rainbow Studentship Scheme, applicants must submit an additional personal statement to the Rainbow Studentship Committee.
- Shortlisted applicants may be asked to attend an interview with the Committee.
- Application deadline: TBC
if you have any questions or concerns please contact us via email.