Wessex One Health Doctoral Landscape Award Scholarships 2026

Wessex One Health BBSRC Doctoral Landscape Award scholarships (2026)

What you get

PhD studentships cover four years of UK or International PhD fees and a tax free maintenance allowance (currently £20,780 in 2025-6) plus some research and travel costs.

Type of award

PhD scholarship

PhD project

About Wessex One Health (WOH)

Sussex supervisors are offering the following  for September 2026:

• • Paralysis in the hive: epidemiology and persistence of a neglected virus pathogen of honeybees  (Prof Bill Hughes/APHA)
  • Investigating the antigenicity and cross-reactivity of lyssaviruses and coronaviruses to inform intervention strategies (Dr Edward Wright/APHA)
  • Understanding global control mechanisms for starvation survival in non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) (Dr Mark Paget/UKHSA)
  • How do bacteria adapt to their environment? (Prof Adam Eyre-Walker/UKHSA)
  • How does norovirus spread within care homes and what are the transmission links between care and acute healthcare settings? (Dr Maria Krutikov/UKHSA)
  • Understanding how targeted interventions shape microbial ecology and antimicrobial drug resistance (AMR) transmission in hospital wastewater.  (Dr James Price/UKHSA)
  • AI-driven design and evaluation of Pan-Filovirus vaccine antigens (Dr Antony Oliver/Dstl)
  • Identification of Henipavirus cell entry factors using an innovative screening platform to inform therapeutic strategies.(Dr Leandro Castellano/Pirbright)
  • Deciphering mutational pressures in bacterial and viral pathogens using mutation signatures (Dr Frances Pearl/Pirbright)
  • Investigating how virial infection impacts RNA degradation and mitochondrial biology . (Dr Ben Towler/Pirbright)

Eligibility

Who we are looking for

You will have the ambition, motivation and scientific curiosity to research new approaches to combatting infectious diseases in the themes of:

• Detection, prevention and intervention
• Microbial evolution and drug resistance
• Understanding disease spread
• Infection and cellular biology. 

You will have or expect to have an MSc, and/or a first or upper second honours degree in a relevant subject. We welcome applications from graduates of all universities, and from candidates already in work, or returning after a career break.

Note: Lab experience is desirable but not essential as all successful applicants will be trained in basic lab skills where applicable.

The Scholarships are open to both UK and International applicants but 70% of each cohort of students must be UK and some of the host laboratories have further nationality or residency requirements for their researchers, so bear this in mind when selecting your four project preferences.

In order to be eligible to apply for the necessary security clearance, applicants for projects with Dstl must be a UK national, currently resident in the UK, and have resided in the UK continuously for the past five year. Applicants for projects including laboratory work at APHA, UKHSA or Pirbright Institute must be currently resident in the UK and have at least three years continuous UK residency. Counter Terrorist Check (CTC) clearance is required prior to commencing work at all the above laboratories. Please contact the supervisors of your chosen project if you have any questions. 

The University Admissions team will check your application in detail but in general you count as a UK student if you are 

• a UK national who has been living in the UK or EU for the three years prior to starting your course;
• an EU national with Settled Status;
• an EU national with Pre-Settled status who has been living in the UK or the EU for 3 years prior to starting your course;
• a student with Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK;
• an Irish National (due to a reciprocal agreement with the UK)

All other students (e.g. EU nationals moving to the UK to start their PhD) will count as Overseas students.

Number of scholarships available

17 PhD studentships are available for October 2026 start across the consortium. 

Deadline

How to apply

Applicants should submit an  and complete our  by the deadline - January 23rd 2026

Prospective students are asked to select up to . The Sussex projects are listed in Section 14 of the application form.

Shorlisted applicants will be invited to an online interview where you will record your responses. If you are invited for interview you should contact your preferred supervisor/s if you have not already done so before applying.

Contact us

For Sussex-specific enquiries contact pgr-scholarships@sussex.ac.uk

For information on our Sussesx projects contact our Sussex supervisors named in the project descriptions.

For further information on the programme or application process, email WOH@surrey.ac.uk. 

You might also be interested in

You can see further information about the Wessex One Health programme .

Timetable

The timetable is as follows:

• Submission deadline: January 23rd 2026
• Online interviews: w/c March 3rd 2026