Thank you for your e-mail expressing interest in PhD studies in the School of Plant Biology/Institute of Agriculture/Oceans Institute at UWA.
Please read through the information provided below. Unless you have already acquired a scholarship to fund the fees and stipend for your studies, or wish to self-fund your studies, you will need to apply for an IPRS through UWA, one of the other Australian government options listed below or scholarships from your home country government or other sources. Please check this list of possible scholarships: http://www.studyat.uwa.edu.au/international-students/international-scholarships . All these scholarships are extremely competitive.
In particular:
1) You will need to provide evidence of English proficiency as explained below to enrol at UWA. This rule is strictly applied. Other forms of evidence (e.g. high school English, undergraduate and postgraduate studies in English) are rarely adequate unless you completed high school in a country for which English is the native language (this includes New Zealand, UK, USA, but generally not African or Asian countries). If you do not meet requirements, some scholarships (eg Australia awards (ie Ausaid)) may sometimes allow a period of English study at UWA prior to commencing a MSc or PhD. 2) In order to be competitive for the UWA IPRS and SIRF scholarships, it is generally necessary to have at least one, preferably more, first authored papers in Thomson Reuters ISI-listed, moderate-high impact journals (see http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/ ). Very little benefit is obtained for publications in non-ISI journals and many local journals are not listed. If you are planning to publish papers in the near future, please target ISI journals. 3) For all scholarship applications you first need to identify a UWA supervisor and satisfy them that you are sufficiently prepared for PhD research (e.g. through collaborating with them to develop a short research proposal). Please note that many supervisors currently have a high student load and thus I may not be able to secure you a project and supervisor.
Please forward me your CV, academic transcripts, copies of published papers and a copy of your research thesis (whether in English or not) and evidence of English proficiency (please label files clearly and send as PDFs NOT rar). I can then discuss with you further what opportunities may be available. Note too, most supervisors will prefer you to study a project of their choosing – please take a moment to look through the school website and see which potential supervisors best match your interests (you may also wish to look them up on Google Scholar). See http://www.plants.uwa.edu.au/research
Best wishes,
Megan
Extra information
Plant sciences at UWA has become the strongest in Australia in terms of numbers of journal articles and citations attracted by those publications. In the School of Plant Biology, we have about 120 postgraduate students, mainly PhD students, of which half are from a wide range of countries outside Australia. Information on all the research in our School is available on our website: http://www.plants.uwa.edu.au/home/research
Scholarships to study at UWA are extremely competitive. To successfully obtain a scholarship to study at UWA as a PhD student, you will need a sound undergraduate record, some training research experience (e.g. MSc thesis or 1A Hons thesis by research), demonstrated capacity for research outputs (e.g. preferably via at least one publication in the international literature (ISI-listed journals) and a high research thesis grade), a sound project proposal (to be developed with your prospective supervisor), evidence of high English ability, and solid reports from referees.
Below I provide additional information on some scholarship options and other issues
ENGLISH PROFICIENCY STANDARDS Qualification through Year 12 English or equivalent Proof of WA TEE (Year 12) or