Hi! I will be starting my one year masters in Sep 2010 at UK. I want to follow it immediately with a phD in biological sciences. When should i start applying for PhD? I want only the funded ones.
What is the general procedure? Please help! Best Regards.

Apply as early as possible, but it depends on which uni/school u r applying. Some deadline is in november, some in july.

Hi Jayeta, assuming that you are looking to start a PhD September 2011 and if you are looking for fully funded studentships then you will have to regularly check the advertisements for PhD studentships that universities put out. The time that you have to submit your application will depend largely on where you are looking to apply to, as different institutions place their adverts at different times of year and consequently have different deadlines for the application. For example I am coming to the end of my 2 year part time MSc and I applied for a PhD in February to start October this year. I didn't get it but I then applied to another one at the end of May and had the interview this week and I will be starting a fully funded PhD in October this year.

The process that I've outlined above was for studentships where the project was already defined. I'm not sure what the procedure would be if you are looking to get funding for your own project idea.

Hope this helps :-)

Hey Jayeta! It depends a little on whether you are looking for an advertised PhD or whether you have your own proposal that you need to get funding for. If you are looking for an advertised PhD that already has funding then these can crop up pretty much any time from the beginning of the academic year through to summer, so you just have to keep an eye on what's being advertised. If you have your own proposal and want to apply for funding for it then you need to start as early as possible. I did it this way round and had put in several applications for funding by Christmas in my MSc year. So keep checking findaphd.com all year round for advertised PhDs, and if you have your own proposal that you want funding for then you would need to start thinking about who could supervise it and where the funding might be obtained from as early as possible into your MSc. It's easier to get an advertised funded PhD than to get funding for your own proposal, but if you have a specific idea in mind then it is possible to do it that way way round, and it gives you more flexibility regarding what you want to investigate and how! Good luck with it, KB

If you are self funding at many universities you can start when you want. I started end November (in part because my applicaiton got lost by central admissions)

thank you all!
I dont have any specific proposal prepared..so, i guess i would be going for the advertised ones only..
thanks again..i atleast know where to start now.. :-)