The Wellcome Trust’s Biomedical Vacation Scholarships (BVS) provide promising undergraduates from underrepresented groups with hands-on experience of research at King’s College London during the summer holidays, with the aim of encouraging a career in research.  You can read more about the Wellcome Trust’s initiative on their website: How we can give a more diverse group of undergraduates hands-on research experience.

Information on the Wellcome Trust Science remit

Contact: outreach@kcl.ac.uk

You’ll be paid the London Living Wage for working 35 hours per week. If travel/accommodation is a barrier to you taking up the internship, then there may be additional provision to support this.

The seven-week BVS placements for summer 2025 will run from 7 July to 22 August. The first week is a soft start for inductions and ‘settling in’. A closing meeting will take place on 22 August for the BVS scholars to present their work to each other and other mentors involved with the scheme.

The research project may be done in the laboratory, office, clinic or field and may involve experimental or theoretical approaches, depending on the type of research a supervisor undertakes.

The project catalogue will be available in March listing all the projects for summer 2025.

The summer 2025 project catalogue is available here: Wellcome Trust Biomedical Vacation Scholarship Scheme Project Catalogue 2025.

Scholarship applicants are requested NOT to contact the supervisors listed regarding their BVS applications, unless requested to do so by a member of the BVS administration team.

If you have any queries about the scholarships or applying, please contact outreach@kcl.ac.uk.

Six scholarships will be offered each year and they are competitive.

We received 100 to 200 applications per year for summers 2021- 2024.

Please ensure that you read through the below application criteria fully and answer the application questions carefully.

To apply you must:

• have the ‘Right to Work’ in the UK.
• be registered on a relevant undergraduate course in the UK or Republic of Ireland. Examples of relevant subjects include: science (biomedical, natural, computing or physical sciences), medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, engineering, mathematics and psychology;
• be in the middle year(s) of your undergraduate degree;
• have not yet undertaken a substantial period of research.
• not be attending your university course in the UK on a ‘Student Visa’.

Where a scholarship is oversubscribed, preference will be given to those who:

• are from an ethnic group that is underrepresented at King’s College London (Asian Pakistani; Asian Bangladeshi; Black Caribbean; Black African; Gypsy, Roma or Traveller; mixed backgrounds featuring one of these groups);
• are a mature student (aged 21 or over when they started their first undergraduate course);
• have lived in a postcode, listed as Polar4 quintiles 1 or 2, Acorn quintiles 4 or 5 and IMD quintiles 1 or 2;
• are care-experienced or an estranged student;
• have a disability;
• are currently studying at a non-Russell Group university.

Applicants who do not meet any of the above criteria are still eligible to apply.

Please note, you are ineligible to apply if you:

• are in your first or last year of your undergraduate degree;
• attend your undergraduate university course in the UK on a ‘Student Visa’
• have previously undertaken a vacation scholarship from Wellcome or another funding body, or have had significant research experience;
• have completed or are currently undertaking an intercalated year;
• have completed or are currently undertaking a one-year placement in research as part of their degree (e.g. a sandwich year);
• are a graduate-entry medical student who has completed a previous undergraduate degree in a science-related subject;
• are enrolled on a course outside the UK or the Republic of Ireland.

We are now OPEN to APPLICATIONS for Summer 2025.

Application DEADLINE: 23:59 on 31 March 2025.

Please read through the projects available in this: Wellcome Biomedical Vacation Scholarship Project Catalogue - Summer 2025. 

If you are interested in applying - please read through the BVS Summer 2025 Application Directions in their entirety.

The link to the APPLICATION FORM is at the end of the Application Directions.

After you click submit you should see this message and can save your application form.

“THANK YOU for your application to King's College London Biomedical Vacation Scholarship (BVS). We wish you every success!

Due to time constraints, we will NOT be able to: (1) make any changes to application forms after they have been submitted, (2) consider applications if the requested transcripts have not been provided, (3) provide individual feedback on applications. Please do NOT contact project supervisors regarding your application to the BVS Scheme unless requested to do by someone from the BVS administration team.”

After submitting an application - if you have not received an email with further instructions by 16 May 2025, then unfortunately your application for a Biomedical Vacation Scholarship (BVS) has been unsuccessful.

If you have been short-listed, then:

You will receive an email from a member of the BVS administration team (around 16 April 2025) requesting you contact:

1. One or two referees asking them to supply references to an email address (to be confirmed).

2. Your two top supervisor choices for an online video meeting.

The email will have a clear deadline by which all reference letters must be received, and supervisor meetings must take place, for your application to be further considered. There may also be an online meeting with a member(s) of the BVS admin team.

A BVS Panel will then meet to award the six scholarships. All candidates will be informed if they have or have not received a scholarship by 16 May 2025.

If you have any queries about the scholarships or applying, please contact outreach@kcl.ac.uk.

If you are interested in receiving updates regarding King’s College London’s Wellcome Trust’s Biomedical Vacation Scholarships Scheme, e.g. when projects are posted or applications open, then please complete this FORM to subscribe (or unsubscribe later) to the mailing list to receive timely updates regarding the scheme.

If you work as a researcher at King’s and you are interested in offering a project as part of the Wellcome Trust’s Biomedical Vacation Scholarships Scheme, then please review the supervisor criteria listed in this FORM and complete it to subscribe (or unsubscribe later) to the mailing list to receive updates regarding the project calls.