We have a range of funding opportunities available to support you through your PhD studies.
Award funding process and criteria
Applicants are nominated for funding initially by the potential PhD supervisors, after the offer of a PhD place, and funding decisions are made by our Awards Panel Committee.
The Awards Panel also decides on nominations for other funding schemes, e.g. President's Scholarship, which are centrally managed by the College. The Awards panel will only consider applicants, not current students, nominated by their supervisors. The only exception is for Imperial College London and the China Scholarship Council (CSC) scheme, which is open to applications from new applicants and students in their first year of PhD study at Imperial. The Award Panel will consider nominations from supervisors for eligible first year PhD students for the CSC scheme only. The Department does not support direct CSC applications.
The Awards Panel meets regularly throughout the year: normally end of Nov, end of Jan, end of March and end of June.
The Awards Panel Committee considers a number of indicators in order to assess your academic achievements and research potential. Indicators of academic achievement include grades, cohort ranking, awards for academic achievements, national and international standing of the institution, and reference letters. Indicators of research potential include your research statement, the performance at the interview stage, internships/placements, and any publications.
Previously successful applicants have obtained a 1st class Master's degree; been ranked near the top of their cohort, have been awarded a number of prizes/awards during their degree, have had a number of research placements over their studies and have conducted work that has been published or is of publishable quality.
Start date for funded places is usually 1 October.
Please note that funding does not cover Student Visa or Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) fees.
EPSRC and Departmental Scholarships
- Electrical & Electronic Engineering PhD Scholarships
- Maria Petrou Scholarship for Women
- EPSRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP)
- Funding offered by Academics for specific research projects
- Additional College Scholarships
- Amelia and John Kentfield PhD Scholarships 2025/26
The Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering has a number of scholarships for outstanding PhD applicants each year.
PhD supervisors can nominate a limited number of their top applicants for funding. Funding decisions are made by the EEE department’s Awards Panel Committee.
Applicants who apply earlier (i.e. by October for the following October), are more likely to be nominated for this funding as the process is highly competitive. Applicants will be contacted if they have been awarded this funding.
The annual funds available are awarded on case by case basis. It can be used flexibly, in various ways: full scholarships, partial scholarships, top-up funding to cover shortfall in other external or internal College schemes.
Full EEE Scholarship consists of:
- Home/Overseas tuition fees for 3 years
- Bursary (at UKRI rate + London allowance of £2,000 for 3.5 years)
- Total allowance of £1,500 towards conferences and travel
The Professor Maria Petrou PhD Scholarship has been established to help recruit, retain and advance the careers of all women, including cis and trans women in engineering. It provides funds for undertaking PhD studies in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London.
The Maria Petrou scholarship covers tuition fees (Home & Overseas), bursary (at UKRI rates with London allowance + £500per annum for 3.5 years) and a total allowance of £2,000 towards conferences and travel.
Meet some of our Maria Petrou Scholars
Eligibility
Applicants of any nationality are eligible for consideration for this prestigious academic scholarship. Eligible applicants do not apply directly for this scholarship — if they have been made a PhD offer by the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, an application can be put forward by their supervisor.
Deadline for applications
For students starting in October: 1 March
About Professor Maria Petrou
The scholarship honours the life and work of Professor Maria Petrou (1953-2012), who was the first woman Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. She received numerous honours, including a fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2004, and was a passionate advocate for women in engineering.
Maria Petrou was born in Greece and studied Physics at the University of Thessaloniki, scoring the country’s highest mark in her entrance exam, before moving to Cambridge to complete her doctorate.
She began her academic career in Astrophysics, but at a time of increased UK government funding for the applied sciences in the early 1980s, Maria — who described herself as a problem-solver — began an academic migration towards research in robotic vision and remote sensing.
Throughout her career in this field, Maria was interested in improving the ability of robots and computers to extract important information from raw data, detecting patterns, and overcoming difficulties associated with textures in images. She is noted for the development of a completely novel type of image representation known as trace transform. This allowed her to manipulate, compare and identify 2-D images by scale or rotation – allowing significant breakthroughs in, for example, face recognition software. She developed advanced techniques for edge and line detection, for texture analysis and for image segmentation, and was a specialist in colour image processing.
Professor Petrou posed an open challenge to her peers to develop a robot for ironing clothes, after her great-aunt came across a news report of a robot football world cup and said: “Why can’t (men) develop something really useful, like an ironing robot?” Her great-aunt's challenge became a three-year EU-funded project.
The UK Research Councils have allocated awards or provide the College with funding for specific activity.
The department has a number of Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) studentships available.
Please read the guidance on Research Council PhD studenships to confirm your eligibility for this funding.
Some funding is project specific and therefore linked to specific supervisors. These are usually advertised on findaphd.com
You do not need to submit several applications in order to be considered for various projects. If appropriate, you may want to submit a revised personal statement. Once you have submitted an online application, you can be considered for any suitable projects, providing you meet our entry requirements. These appointments are made by the supervisor and are not considered by our Awards Panel.
Imperial has a range of other scholarships which you many be eligible for, including the prestigious President's Scholarship.
Find out more about other Imperial College Scholarships and funding opportunities or go straight to our scholarships search tool, which helps you search for all available scholarships in one place.
These scholarships are particularly aimed at encouraging candidates from underrepresented backgrounds, and specifically aim to support projects which align with the following areas: sustainability, advances in AI and its applications, and Space related research areas.
The scholarship provides the following support during the 3.5 years of study:
- Full funding for tuition fees (at Home or Overseas rate as applicable for 2025/26); for guidance on fee status before you apply, please refer to Imperial College's Fee Status page.
- Bursary stipend of about £25,000 per annum (2025/26 rate tbc) to assist with living costs.
- A consumables fund of £2,000 per annum for the first 3 years of study.
The EEE department will support applications from candidates with Home or Overseas fee status.
Eligibility
To be eligible, candidates must be:
- Female; and/or
- Of an underrepresented minority ethnicity; and/or
- Have a disability as defined at section 6 UK Equality Act 2010.
The scholarships are only open to new PhD applications. Current registered Imperial PhD students are not eligible to be considered for this scholarship.
Application deadline
The application deadline for 2025/26 intake is 9 January 2025. The decision will be made in early March 2025. Note that this scholarship is not an annual recurring scheme and this will be the final round of recruitment.
Further information
Full scholarship information and eligibility criteria can be found at Amelia and John Kentfield PhD Scholarships 2025/26 | Study | Imperial College London
For department specific admissions queries, please contact eee.pgadmissions@imperial.ac.uk