Vacation Scholarships

  Applications for the SRF Vacation Scholarship are currently open and will close on Friday 10 April 2026

Objective:

The objective of these scholarships is to enable students to work during the summer vacation in university departments or research institutes on research projects related to reproduction, fertility and lactation in humans and other animals.

Students should normally be in the second (if on a three year course) or second/third (if on a four year course) year of their undergraduate degree studies and may be considering research as a career.  Ideally, projects should be undertaken in the summer vacation prior to the student entering their final year.  Projects can be a maximum of 8 weeks long, and include a stipend funded of £250 per week to cover living costs for the student, plus an award of up to £1,000 to be paid to the host laboratory to cover the cost of consumables for the project.

Scholarships are not available for students to undertake projects which form part of their normal degree course. Novel, stand alone projects are encouraged.

A report, (maximum two sides of A4), must be submitted, detailing the findings of their investigation (further details will be sent to successful candidates). This report may be published in the SRF newsletter or on the website. If a report is not received by the end of December, the project supervisor will become ineligible for future vacation scholarships for 3 years.

The SRF would strongly encourage the award recipients (especially the student, but if not, the supervisor) to present their results at the following Fertility meeting if possible. They will need to submit their work via the Fertility conference abstract submission system and will be eligible to apply for an SRF Fertility conference bursary.

Only one scholarship will be awarded per student over the course of their undergraduate study.

Eligibility

Project supervisors MUST be fully paid-up SRF Full or Associate members for a minimum of two years at the time of application.

Student applicants must be a student member or  have applied for membership and have paid for this  before they confirm acceptance.

The following information will be needed to submit an application:

• University course & details
• Courses completed & results
• Referee & department contacts: Before submitting your request, please obtain the name of a finance contact from your supervisor who will be responsible for submitting the finance request as per Institutional processes
• Project details including title, laboratory, project background (max 200 words), aims (100 words), methods (max 200 words), student reasons for undertaking the project (max 300 words) and budget (max 200 words)
• Confirmation letter from the host university – to be uploaded
• Timeline of proposed work – uploaded as a file (ie Ghantt Chart)

Timeline for 2026

Friday 10 April – Applications Close at 17.00 GMT

Week commencing 18 May – Applicants Notified