Wellcome Trust Master's Award Scheme

Wellcome Trust Master's Award Scheme

The UCD Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland (CHOMI) seeks a candidate for the 2016 Wellcome Trust's Master's Award scheme, offering fees and living allowance for one year of taught Master's study in the history of medicine or medical humanities.

UCD can propose one candidate per year to the Wellcome Trust, which considers applications from various institutions and determines whether funding is awarded. It is a highly competitive international competition. CHOMI has a strong track record of successful applications to the Master's scheme and many of the successful applicants have gone on to secure funding for doctoral studies. Details of the CHOMI MA programme are available at here.

Applications from international students are welcome. In addition to a living allowance, the scheme covers full fees for all Republic of Ireland, UK and European Union students, or full overseas fees for students from a list of eligible countries .

Application Process: Step 1

CHOMI runs an internal selection process to identify the strongest candidate to put forward for the Wellcome Trust competition. We now invite expressions of interest. 

Applicants must be strongly committed to developing a research career, and must have, or be predicted to have, at least a very high upper second-class degree at undergraduate level or an international equivalent .

If you would like to express an interest or discuss the possibility of an application, please contact the Director of CHOMI, Dr Catherine Cox (catherine.cox@ucd.ie)

The deadline for preliminary applications is Monday 11 April 2016. Preliminary applications should be sent to catherine.cox@ucd.ie

Your preliminary application should include:

1. 750-word statement outlining your relevant experience to date and your priorities for future research. If you have already developed a more concrete research proposal, please describe it here.
2. Current CV, 1 to 2 pages in length

Application Process: Step 2

If you are successful in your application to the internal CHOMI competition, you will then work with a CHOMI staff member in developing your final application to the Wellcome Trust.  You will need to be available to work on completing the proposal to a deadline in April, in order to meet the Trust's final deadline of Tuesday 3 May.

Full details of the Trust's policy on selection and entry requirements are provided here. 

Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland (CHOMI) Seminar Series, Semester One, 2015-2016

Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland (CHOMI), Seminar Series

Semester One, 2015-2016

Thursday 17 September 2015
Dr Georgina Laragy (Queen's University, Belfast)
'Children, welfare and space in the industrial city: Belfast 1880-1939'

Thursday 8 October 2015
Dr John Cunningham (Trinity College Dublin)
'Medicine in early modern Ireland: identifying and locating practitioners'

Thursday 5 November 2015
Dr Ciarán McCabe (Maynooth University)
'"Contagion is supposed to have been introduced from the country": civic and charitable responses to the 1817-19 fever epidemic in Dublin city'

Time: 5 pm (for all seminars)
Location: Room K114, School of History and Archives corridor, Newman Building, Belfield, UCD, Dublin 4.

Download CHOMI Seminar Series Programme

The Heritage Collections of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland by Meadhbh Murphy

In this month's post, Meadhbh Murphy, archivist at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, outlines some of the College's important heritage collections.


The Royal College of Surgeons Heritage Collections contains a unique and amazing collection of material relating to the history of medicine in Ireland and abroad. The collection covers the last 250 years and touches on medical as well as on the social, historical and personal events that took place. The variety and scope of this material is immense ranging from the College Charter granted by George III on February 11^th 1784; ivory handled operating knives to the birth certificate of Emily Winifred Dickson, the first female fellow of the College; from tapestries embroidered by the wife of one of the founders of the college, Sylvester O’Halloran, and finally to a handwritten and signed speech given by William Stoker to the Royal College of Physicians in 1835.

College Charter granted by George III on February 11^th 1784

The most important manuscript in the collection is the Practica Magistri Johannis Ardern (RCSI/MS01) presented by Sir John Lentaigne in 1851. The only complete copy worldwide, it treats of surgical practice. Its author John Arderne was a surgeon who lived near Nottingham from 1307-1390. The historical value of the work lies in the account it provides of surgery in England in the fourteenth century. 

Extract from Practica Magistri Johannis Ardern (RCSI/MS01) 

To make this wealth of material available to researchers and academics the Heritage Collections are undergoing a transformation. Every aspect from the reading room, archival storage, website and online catalogue are being looked at. The reading room has been re-furbished creating a bright and airy research environment. The archival material and manuscripts are being re-housed and catalogued into a user-friendly online system. The Heritage Collections web pages have been updated and can be found here http://www.rcsi.ie/heritagecollections

A blog informing the public and researchers of interesting material, new discoveries, upcoming events and news related to the Heritage Collections can be found here http://rcsiheritage.blogspot.ie/

The Heritage Collections will be closed from 1^st March until further notice to facilitate these changes. But please feel free to contact us at archivist@rcsi.ie or by phone on (01) 402 2511 during this time with any inquiries or possible donations you may have.