Hi, I'm in the midst of finishing up my Masters in Biology in Germany. Just wanted to find out if anyone knows what the funding is like for PhD Biology in Cambridge. Is it paid, like a PhD in germany or do I have to pay school fees?

hi biomaverick,
well it is a two stage thing. one stage is getting accepted as PhD student. this involves an application with a project description. if you are accepted, then so far nothing is said about funding. that means you pay fees and don't earn anything.
so the second stage is that you apply for funding. if you want to start in autumn 2007, you are already very late for this. as you have not been living in the UK for the last three years it will be difficult to get funding from English government places (the research councils). that means you have to apply to international foundations (I believe the Bill Gates Foundation, for example, funds PhD students in Cambridge) and to funding agencies from your country, Germany. There are a number of foundations in Germany and perhaps there is also government funding available; I don't know this. Deadlines are early... start now!

http://trust.gatesscholar.org/

hey, thanks a ton for the info. I'm actually planning to do my PhD in autumn 2009 or autumn 2010, but thought that I should just check things out first. So is it in that case better to do a PhD in Germany as in Germany we are paid 900€ per month for 3 years...

hey biomaverick,
i'm not so certain to it being better in Germany. the point is, in Germany you are paid, but you are also required to 'work' for your professor, often on things not so related to your own project. this often makes the whole process take much longer than the original 3 years, often around 6 or more years (i'm speaking from the experience of Switzerland which is very similar to Germany in such things). there are also advantages to this 'work' but it doesn't come without costs.

in england on the other hand, a PhD alone, i agree, is not so good. but if you get a FUNDED PhD then you will get about 13000£/year, tax free. i think that is more than 900€/month minus taxes. and further, you well get this money not for doing any kind of 'work' for others, but exclusively for doing your own project, which means it is very possible to be finished in 3-4 years. there is of course also a disadvantage in that you don't get involved with many other projects and will thus acquire a more narrow expertise.
so the systems are different, and both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Unfortunatelly it is nearly impossible to get full funding for Cambridge. I was accepted and for a year my potential supervisor and I tried to get funding but being EU not UK the maximum you get is fees-only bursaries and £2000/year from the trust - I got it but it is impossible to life on it. By the way: you are not allowed to work doing a full-time PhD in Cambridge!