How To Apply

Recruitment for 2027 cohort is now open. Apply by 20 January.

Applications for 2027 entry

Applications for 2027 entry are now open!

Apply by 13:00 (UK time) on 20 January 2027 if you'd like to join our CDT in September 2027. 

We have at least 12 fully funded 4-year studentships, covering tuition fees, stipend (£21,805 in 2026/27) and an individual budget for travel and research costs. There are also allowances for sick pay, maternity leave and other purposes. Funding has open eligibility regardless of your nationality and domicile.

Join one of our information sessions, if you would like to learn more about the CDT programme and hear from our academic team:

  • 12 November, 13:00-16:00 (in person)
  • 19th November, 15:00-16:00 (virtual)
  • 8th December, 10:00-11:00 (virtual)

Application Process

This is the sequence you should follow to apply for the CDT programme. Each step is described in more detail below.

  1. Review the CDT programme structure and expectations
  2. Check what applicants the CDT is looking for
  3. Prepare supporting documents
  4. Complete online application form (by 20 January)
  5. Wait for shortlisting results (by 12 February)
  6. Review project proposals and decide which are of interest to you
  7. Approach the supervisors of the projects of interest
  8. Interview for your chosen project (1-5 March)
  9. If successful, submit application to University of Edinburgh

(1) Review the CDT programme structure and expectations

Study the information on the CDT website and other channels carefully and aim to attend one of the virtual open days. You can also email us any questions you have about the programme. 

Remember this is something you would be committing to for 4 years, so it’s important to make sure the programme seems like the right fit for you.

(2) Check what applicants the CDT is looking for

Make sure to review what attributes we're looking for in our CDT students. Consider how they resonate with you and how you can demonstrate these attributes in your application. 

 

(3) Prepare supporting documents

Your application must include all the supporting documents listed below. If any of the documents are missing, your application will be considered incomplete and rejected before review. Click on the name of each document for more details.

Make sure to review the applicant attributes at this stage and provide relevant evidence for these in your supporting statement and CV.

Please note you are not expected to pick your PhD project topic or approach any potential supervisors prior to applying. All applications will be considered for their suitability to the CDT programme. Only applicants shortlisted for interview will be presented with this year's project proposals and will need to pick their top choice then.

Your personal statement should consist of several sections, which you will enter directly into the application form. The questions and word limits are provided below so that you can prepare your responses in advance.

1) Motivation & Career Trajectory (up to 300 words) 

Focus on your journey, your drive, and your future. Tell us why you are applying to Edinburgh and this CDT in particular.

  • Your Drive: What motivates you to translate AI methods into real-world applications in Biomedicine & Health? What specific research question are you drawn towards and why?
  • Your Goals: What are your career and development ambitions, and exactly how will this specific CDT and PhD help you achieve them?
  • Your Milestones: Highlight 1-2 key academic or professional achievements (e.g., degrees, awards, publications, transformative projects) that solidified your decision to pursue this path. (Note: Do not simply list your degrees or jobs here; we will review your CV and transcripts for your general background.)

2) Technical & Domain Readiness (up to 400 words) 

Focus on your concrete technical skills and practical experiences. Mention the courses you have taken and projects you’ve done. We do not expect you to be an expert in both AI and biomedicine: the CDT training programme is specifically designed to bridge the gap and teach the complementary skills. Use this section to demonstrate your current knowledge and experience.

  • Technical Competence: Detail the specific programming languages, mathematical background, and machine learning knowledge that you have so far.
  • Applied Biomedical Experience: Describe any hands-on experience you have working with biomedical or clinical data. What specific computational or data challenges did you encounter, and how did you handle them?

3) Collaboration, Communication & Ethics (up to 350 words) 

In this PhD program, you will be embedded in interdisciplinary and collaborative environment. Tell us how you think about research and how you work with others.

  • AI Ethics: What are your thoughts on the ethical and societal issues surrounding the use of AI in clinical settings and the handling of sensitive data?
  • Collaboration & Communication: Describe your experience with interdisciplinary teamwork and communicating complex research to the general public.
  • Cohort Contribution: What unique perspectives, attributes, or support will you bring to the research culture and your peer cohort in the CDT? 

4) Additional factors (up to 150 words)

We encourage applicants, if they would like to, to let us know of any challenges or barriers that they may have experienced that they feel has impacted their academic progression, ability to gain relevant experience, or indeed any other aspect they think is relevant to our consideration of their application.

 


You will need to provide the following supporting information on your application form. It is advisable to prepare the details in advance so that you can easily paste them to the form.

Education

You will be asked to provide details of your university-level education. Please have the following information available for up to two most relevant degrees (completed or in progress):

  • University/institution 
  • Degree programme name, start and end dates
  • Your overall degree result, or current/predicted result if the degree is in progress. 
  • The grading scale or classification system used by your institution and how to interpret it, where relevant.
  • Whether your institution provides an official cohort/class ranking and, if so, your official ranking.
Referee details

You will need to provide details of two referees: name, job title, organisation, institutional email. Please note they would only be contacted if you are shortlisted for interview. 

Your referees should normally be academics who are able to comment on your academic skills, achievements and potential. If you have been out of education for some time and are unable to provide two academic referees, a relevant employer may be acceptable as a referee.

(optional) Research and engagement outputs

You will be asked to highlight any notable outputs relevant for the CDT. These may include journal or conference papers, preprints, posters or presentations, popular science articles, blog posts, or other relevant outputs.

For each output or activity, you will be asked to provide:

  • Name and type of the output or activity
  • Link or DOI
  • A brief description of your own contribution to the work (maximum 100 words)

(!) Previous publications or other outputs are not a requirement for admission to the programme, so do not worry if you have nothing to list here. And definitely refrain from fabricating or inflating any outputs.


As part of your application, you are required to complete a short research proposal exercise based on one of the projects currently undertaken by AI4BI PhD students.

Select one current AI4BI PhD project and, using it as a starting point, propose a novel extension to the work or an interesting related research direction. 

The exercise does not determine your future PhD project. Rather, its aim is to demonstrate how you engage with a research problem, draw on relevant research experience and literature, develop ideas, and consider how these could be investigated and evaluated.

Your proposal should address the following:

  • Research experience and skills: What previous research experience or research skills would you draw on when approaching this problem, and how would they be relevant? This might include experience of reviewing literature, developing research questions, designing experiments or studies, developing or evaluating methods, analysing and interpreting data, working with particular types of data, or communicating research findings.
  • Research direction: What aspect of the existing project would you build on, extend or approach differently? What research question or direction would you propose, and why?
  • Relevant research and methods: What existing research, methods or approaches are relevant to your proposal? How do they inform the approach you would take?
  • Approach: How would you investigate your proposed research question? What methods, data or experiments might you use?
  • Evaluation: What would success look like, and how would you evaluate the proposed approach?
  • Open questions: What limitations, unanswered questions or further research directions do you identify?
  • Impact: What could this research contribute to the field and, where relevant, to healthcare, biomedicine or wider society?
     

Maximum length: two pages, not counting references.

(!) Please do not contact the student or supervisors associated with the project for advice or assistance with this exercise. Your submission should represent entirely your own work.
 


Provide an up-to-date CV which includes details on your education (including all degrees completed and in progress), research and/or professional experience, technical and transferable skills, and relevant achievements.

Please do NOT attach your photo or mention your age, race or any other characteristics in the CV.

You can view some example CVs below that are examples of good practice. These have been submitted by our 2024 & 2025 students when they were applying to the CDT.


Sample CVs of our CDT students (at the point of application)

You need to submit official documents that confirm any degrees or qualifications you have been awarded.

A degree certificate is the official document which you usually receive at your graduation ceremony and confirms that the degree has been awarded to you. A transcript is an additional document which comes with your certificate and details the grades you have achieved per course/module each semester/academic year. Please ensure that your transcript includes information for the total duration of your studies.

Please also provide additional transcripts from Institutions you have studied in as a visiting student or as part of an exchange programme.

If your degree is currently in progress, please submit an interim transcript.


See the detailed guidance on providing official certificates.


If your degree certificate and/or transcript are not in English, you will need to provide a translation of all these documents.

The translation does not have to be officially certified at this point, but if you are successful and offered a place on the programme, you will need to provide a certified translation before your offer can be made unconditional.


(4) Complete online application form

Submit the application form by 13:00 (UK time) on 20 January 2027.

We appreciate that our application form is detailed and requires some preparation. The information we ask for enables us to run a robust and consistent selection process, while allowing us to assess applications efficiently and communicate outcomes to applicants in a timely manner.

The form also includes a number of demographic questions. These responses are not available to those assessing or shortlisting applications and do not form part of the selection process. We use this information to understand who is applying to the CDT, identify potential barriers or under-representation, and help us make our recruitment processes as inclusive and accessible as possible.

(5) Wait for shortlisting results

The shortlisting will be based on your suitability for the CDT programme. 

Applicants shortlisted for interview will be presented with the list of PhD projects on offer for 2027 start, and will need to pick their top choice project to focus on at the interview.

Please note if you have not been shortlisted in the first instance, you may still be considered at later stages, if we have any spaces remaining unallocated after the first round of interviews.

(6) Review project proposals and decide which are of interest to you

Start by finding and reading through a few academic publications that cover the same or adjacent topic as your project of interest. You can try searching via the platforms listed below.

The University of Edinburgh Research Explorer will allow you to access peer-reviewed papers free of charge, and you can search by the project supervisor to find all their publications to date.

Perplexity is another great tool to suggest relevant publications, concept explanations and other resources to start with.

This stage should give you a general idea of the research topic, current trends, developments and methodologies, and ultimately help you consider if this is an area you see yourself working in for the next 4 years.

(7) Approach the supervisors of the projects of interest

We strongly recommend approaching the primary supervisor before the interview. This will help you get a better idea about the project as well as the supervisor who you’d potentially be working with for the next 4 years.

For your introductory email to the supervisor:

  • Include “AI4BI CDT” in subject line
  • Introduce yourself and briefly describe your background: what you have studied so far, any relevant professional/research experience.
  • Explain why you are interested in the project, how it fits with your interests, aspirations and experience.
  • Make sure to tailor your email to a particular supervisor and project, rather than sending a general email to several people at once.
  • Be brief and stick to the point: there is no need to write an essay.
  • Attach your up-to-date CV to the email.

It is normal to ask the prospective supervisor to put you in touch with one or several of their current PhD students. This would help you get an external perspective about working with that supervisor and decide if it matches your expectations.

(8) Interview for your chosen project

Based on steps 6-7, you should be able to identify your top choice project you would like to interview for. The interview will include tailored questions on your project of choice, along with other topics which will be communicated to you at the point of interview invitation.

(9) Submit your documents via the University of Edinburgh applicant portal - if you're offered a CDT place

If your application for the CDT studentship is successful and you would like to accept it, you will need to submit your documents to the University of Edinburgh applicant system (EUCLID). This is required to verify your eligibility requirements and for your formal University offer letter to be issued.

You will be sent a link to the application portal by the CDT.

 

Upload the same personal statement you included with your original application to the CDT.


Upload the same CV you included with your original application to the CDT.


You need to specify two referees, which should ordinarily be written by academics and teachers who can provide good quality and authentic assessments of your academic skills, achievements, and potential. If you currently work in industry and don’t have recent academic referees, a reference from your employer is suitable too, provided that it covers the above points.

When you submit your application the system will automatically request a reference from your referees, but if you have already obtained references you’ll be able to upload these directly.


You need to submit official documents that confirm any degrees or qualifications you have been awarded.

A degree certificate is the official document which you usually receive at your graduation ceremony and confirms that the degree has been awarded to you. A transcript is an additional document which comes with your certificate and details the grades you have achieved per course/module each semester/academic year. Please ensure that your transcript includes information for the total duration of your studies.

Please also provide additional transcripts from Institutions you have studied in as a visiting student or as part of an exchange programme.

If your degree is currently in progress, please submit an interim transcript.


See the detailed guidance on providing official certificates.


If your degree certificate and/or transcript are not in English, you will need to provide a certified translation of these documents. 

Note this is different from the CDT application, which didn't require certified translation.


You must demonstrate a level of English language competency that will enable you to succeed in your studies. This can be via your degree certificate or one of the approved tests. See the University guidance for details on what evidence is acceptable.


This article was published on