Students and prospective students

The Astrophysics PhD Open Day will take place on Wednesday November 27th.   

The Open Day for October 2025 entry will be held from 12 noon to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 27th November 2024, in Room 1004 Blackett Lab, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 2AZ.  Please register here for in-person or remote participation.

Information for general October 2025 entry

PhD admissions are open for general October 2025 entry.

Most of our PhD applications are for STFC funded places, so we set up formal deadlines for applications and dates for interviews. The application deadline for STFC funded places is 5th February 2025 - please note that it can take time for your application to reach us from Registry, so if you are submitting shortly before the deadline please send a copy of your application directly to us via astro@imperial.ac.uk. We are able to support one overseas candidate with an STFC place.

If you are an overseas candidate who would need funding from a scholarship you must apply earlier than the deadline for STFC funded places. To be considered for main round of the Imperial College President's PhD Scholarships you must apply before the 9th January 2025. To be eligible for the full range of Imperial Scholarships you must apply before the deadlines which vary; you will then be considered for all scholarships as part of the assessment process. If you are interested in applying for one of these please apply as soon as possible, you are welcome to discuss your application with potential supervisors before you apply. If you are a candidate who does not require funding please indicate this on the application form. 

Interviews will be held in late February or early March 2025 (date TBC), and offers will be made shortly after, with a deadline for acceptance on the last day of March for STFC studentships.

Applying

Applications must be made online via the Postgraduate Prospectus, we cannot process applications sent directly to us. You should apply for a Physics Research (PhD). In order to apply for astrophysics PhDs, under research details, enter Astrophysics when asked for your proposed group.

The application form will ask for a "research proposal" if you want to be considered for the President's Scholarship, we do not require a detailed proposal (you may disregard less specific advice you read elsewhere), please use this to describe which topics and/or projects you're interested in applying for. You are welcome to contact our staff members to discuss potential projects before making your application.  For further information, please see frequently asked questions. 

Funding

A PhD normally takes 3.5 years to complete. We accept around 4-6 PhD students each year, mainly funded by STFC. Please see the STFC website to check your eligibility for these.

Visit the following link to find out further information on fees and funding.

PhD Projects

To give you an idea of the areas we cover, PhD projects offered previously for 2024 entry can be found here.  From early December, these projects will be replaced by new ones, and continually added to throughout the 2024-2025 application period. You are free to contact our staff members to discuss potential projects in our research areas that match your interests.

PG lecture courses

The programme for this year will be posted on this page nearer the time.

In addition, the Graduate School offers a range of transferable skills courses. All postgraduate students will need to attend a minimum set of these in order to progress.

Welfare & questions

Physics Department PG pages - for procedural timetable, forms and PG information from the College and Physics Department

Astro PG representative: 

Ellie Gleave  (e.gleave20@imperial.ac.uk) Room 1003 Tel 47543 & Kimeel Sooknunan (k.sooknunan19@imperial.ac.uk). Rooms 1014

Astro PG Coordinator: Dr Jonathan Pritchard
Room 1018c Blackett, email j.pritchard@imperial.ac.uk  tel 47557

Physics Department PG Advisor: Dr Arnaud Czaja
Room 726 Huxley, a.czajal@imperial.ac.uk, tel 41789

Physics Department PG Administrator: Loli Sanchez
Room 316 Blackett , l.sanchez@imperial.ac.uk, tel 47512

We do not currently offer an Astrophysics Master's course, only PhDs (postgraduate research degrees). However, the Physics Department does offer other Master's courses.

Summer Internships

Summer Internships can only start after the summer teaching term has ended. In 2022 this ends on 1 July so the earliest date an internship can be considered for summer 2022 is 4 July.

Earlier dates are not possible because of staff UG teaching commitments.

The Astrophysics group does not have any internal funds to pay for summer internships. You must therefore seek funding yourself. If you are an Imperial student this might be via the UROP scheme. Other funding possibilities include the RAS internship schemes.

Register your interest in a UROP placement in the group

Imperial College UG Research Opportunities

Find out more about the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme.

Other UG Opportunities

Opportunities arise outside Imperial College for UGs to undertake research activities in astrophysics. These are listed here as and when they become available.

The Physics Department at Imperial College has a central scheme for work placement students from schools. If you are interested in seeing what the work of a physics department, including the astrophysics group, is like during a placement, you can find out more on the Physics Outreach pages.