Hi all,

I am in the second year of a self-funded PhD in immunology at a London university. My funding has been from some savings made while teaching, a career development loan and some help from my father that allowed me to payoff fees and bench costs for the first and second years of study. My main financier for the final year was meant to have been my father, but he unfortunately passed away recently due to natural causes. This has left me in an uncertain situation with respect to funding my third year of study.
I work part-time to earn my maintenance costs, but would need some help towards tuition and bench costs and hence write here for some advice. The few options I have are a hardship loan (decision pending), another career development loan, and asking from charities. I would be very grateful if someone may let me any additional options or the names of some generous trusts/charities that I can write to.

Many thanks

MMK

There are various charitable bodies and funds which will support people who meet certain criteria. Have a look at

http://www.acf.org.uk/links/?id=142

http://www.turn2us.org.uk/grants_search.aspx

http://www.nus.org.uk/en/advice/money-and-funding/other-sources-of-funding/educational-charities-and-trusts/

http://www.fundingeducation.co.uk/applying-funding-educational-charity.html

======= Date Modified 27 Feb 2012 22:12:20 =======
My condolences - that's a difficult set of circumstances to deal with.
MMK if you are female, this might be worth a try:
http://ffwg.org.uk/

This might seem obvious, and I apologise if you've been there done that and got nowhere, but does your supervisor know the score? Is there anyway s/he can help? I know it can feel really awkward but if you haven't talked to them, it might be worth it as they might know of very specific small funds for your area of study or whether there had been a precedent in say waiving your bench fees.