We are now accepting applications for the 2022-23 academic year. Please begin your application on our online portal here.
Franklin students work on highly interdisciplinary projects across our Themes with real-world impact, world-leading research supervisors, access to industrial collaborations and top universities from across the UK and beyond-state-of-the-art technologies.
Programme timeline
Students will be primarily based in our Franklin hub at Harwell for the duration of their PhD.
In their first year, students will be registered with our training partner, University of Edinburgh. After completing training, including courses with Edinburgh and Franklin-specific training in our Themes, students will choose a 12-week research project from a catalogue of possible projects. These projects will be highly innovative projects centred around the Franklin technologies and be in collaboration with university academics. Following the evaluation of this Y1 project, students will then register at their supervisor’s university for Years 2-4, which will become the awarding body for their degree.
Affiliations
Our collaborators include research institutes, universities and industrial companies from across the breadth of the UK. For the PhD programme, we are collaborating with Franklin member and non-member universities. Some of our PhD collaborators are shown here:
Franklin students will spend the majority of their time in our new central Hub in Harwell Campus, to ensure they have access to the technologies which will be instrumental for their research.
Supervision
Franklin students will each have a supervisory panel throughout their PhD journey. This includes Franklin academics and university co-supervisors. Each student will also have a Theme Lead personal tutor to meet with informally on a frequent basis. Our Training Coordinator, who manages the PhD programme, will also be supporting their wellbeing.
There are many potential supervisors available at the Franklin, some of which are pictured below. Supervisors for this cohort’s PhD projects are yet to be confirmed and other potential supervisors can be found on our people’s page.
Potential PhD supervisors
Professor James Naismith
Director
Professor Naismith grew up in Hamilton, in the west of Scotland attending local state schools. He graduated from Edinburgh in […]
Professor Josephine Bunch
Science Co-Director Biological Mass Spectrometry
Imperial College and NPL
Professor Josephine Bunch is Co-Director of the National Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry Imaging (NiCE-MSI) at NPL and Chair […]
Professor Zoltan Takats
Science Co-Director Biological Mass Spectrometry
Imperial College
Professor Takats has obtained his PhD from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. He has worked as a post-doctoral research associate […]
Dr Bela Paizs
Head of Molecular Structure Elucidation
Bela is the Head of Molecular Structure Elucidation in the Biological Mass Spectrometry theme. He studied chemistry and completed his […]
Professor Angus Kirkland
Science Director, Correlated Imaging
University of Oxford
Angus Kirkland completed his MA and PhD at the University of Cambridge using high resolution electron microscopy to study the […]
Dr Judy Kim
Deputy Theme Director, Correlated Imaging
University of Oxford
Judy Kim is the Deputy Director of Correlative Imaging at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, Departmental Lecturer in the Department of […]
Professor Ben Davis
Science Director, Next Generation Chemistry
University of Oxford
Ben Davis got his B.A. (1993) and D.Phil. (1996) from the University of Oxford. During this time he learnt the […]
Professor Shabaz Mohammed
Deputy Theme Director, Next Generation Chemistry
Shabaz Mohammed is the Deputy Theme Director and Head of Mechanistic Proteomics, and also teaches at the University of Oxford. […]
Professor Ray Owens
Head of Protein Production UK
Ray Owens obtained his PhD in biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, UK. After postdoctoral work in London and Oxford, […]
Dr Liang Wu
Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale fellow
Liang is a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale fellow. He is establishing a lab to study the processes involved in […]
Dr Mark Basham
Head of AI
Dr Mark Basham is Head of AI at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and a Research Fellow at Diamond Light Source. […]
Dr Maud Dumoux
Technology Lead for Cryo Imaging
Maud has a PhD in immunology from Paris 7 Diderot. Prior to working at the Franklin, she worked at the […]
Dr Michael Grange
Tomography Group Leader
Michael completed his D.Phil in structural biology at the University of Oxford, UK, where he applied FIB milling, electron cryo-tomography […]