Since our first entry in 2013, students and staff have worked together to create an incredibly strong sense of community, and identity, and Natural Sciences has been an outstanding success. We continue to attract some of the most exceptional students in the country, and our amazing students are now going on to do amazing things. During their time in Exeter, many of our students have benefited from the opportunity to undertake an internship, which has given them invaluable insight into potential careers:

"The internship has given me a sense of what it’s like to be a researcher. It’s exciting to be exploring something that nobody else has worked on before. It also showed me what it’s like to be a natural scientist: integrating the sciences to solve a problem. I was based in the Physics department and used Maths and Chemistry knowledge to synthesise brain models and Matlab for data analysis, all for a biological application. I now feel more confident going into the next stage of my degree and am looking forward to pursuing future opportunities for research and to develop as a natural scientist." Alice (Natural Sciences, 2020).

The Natural Sciences Internship Programme will allow more Exeter Natural Sciences students to gain a paid immersive research experience by designing and undertaking their own research project during the summer break. By providing them with real-world, hands-on experience of working in a research team, they will be given a valuable insight into what a career in research would be like. The internships are designed to provide vital support and development allowing students to go on to make informed decisions about their future career paths.

Applicants will be encouraged to identify and collaborate with an academic supervisor working in their field of interest. Working with the supervisor, they will submit an outline proposal for an 8-week programme of research. Successful candidates will be selected on the basis of the quality of the proposal and personal interview. Over time, we would like to include alumni in the selection and mentoring of students.

Can you help?

We would love to be able to offer these fantastic opportunities to more of our talented students. To fund one student to do an 8-week summer internship costs £2,000, so our first goal is to raise this much. However, the more we raise, the more internships we can fund and the more students we can support. Over time, we would also like to be able to fund Natural Sciences PhD scholarships.

All contributions, whatever their size, are welcome - donations large and small can collectively be transformational and make a real difference.

If every Natural Sciences alumnus were to donate £10, then we would be able to fund the first internship!

Double your Donation!

The University has also offered to match all contributions up to the first £2,000, allowing your donations to go even further.

Thank you for your support