Apply now for top-up PhD and MPhil scholarships

Are you a research student looking to collaborate and enhance your project?

CSIRO’s Advanced Engineering Biology Future Science Platform (AEB FSP) is now seeking Expressions of Interest (EOIs) for PhD and Masters/MPhil top-up scholarships.

The opportunity

Engineering biology/synthetic biology has transformational potential for society, environments and industry.

There have been major advances in recent times around the large-scale generation of biological data and its interpretation using advanced computational methods, as well as the increased speed and precision of organism engineering and testing.

Consequently, there are many exciting research opportunities to transform how biology is understood, engineered, and used and how it can benefit society broadly.

Our focus at the AEB FSP is improving the way we collect and interpret data so engineering biology is faster and more predictive. It is transforming the productivity of engineered biological systems at the protein, organism and process levels, as well researching the potential impacts and benefits across society and environments.

The team

Our science is delivered through three research themes where we are bringing together interdisciplinary teams across a range of complementary biophysical and social science areas to advance how engineering biology is researched and deployed. These include:

Guidelines for applicants

We are seeking EOIs from excellent, motivated research students where their capabilities (and/or that of their university research group) complements our research themes, extends CSIRO’s capabilities, and develops transformational engineering biology research.

High achieving research students should be within their first year of study (for PhD), first 6 months (for MPhil) or accepted to start before 30th June 2023. Students will receive a scholarship top-up of $10K per annum and up to $15K per annum of operating funding.

To be considered for this opportunity, please discuss the project with the relevant theme leader and potential CSIRO supervisor and provide the following in a Word or PDF document:

  • Project title
  • Student name and academic institution
  • Supervisory team including university principal supervisor and CSIRO supervisor
  • Studentship start date
  • Name(s) of AEB FSP theme to which the project aligns
  • Details of the rationale for support (500 words max) – including alignment to the AEB FSP, project details (research questions, impact), quality of the student, research environment, and the CSIRO research capability that will be complemented.

More information

Prospective students should submit their EOI by email to Robert Speight by Friday 21 April 2023.

Feel free to contact Robert at the same email address if you have questions.