MSc Cancer Research and Molecular Biomedicine

Fees for entry in 2027 have not yet been set. For reference, the fees for the academic year beginning September 2026 were as follows:

• MSc (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £15,800
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £37,800

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

International student CAS deposit

Self-funded international applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2500 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. Some applicants will be required to pay a higher deposit. More information on tuition fee deposits .

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

For the latest scholarship and bursary information please visit the fees and funding page .

International scholarships

Scholarships for international students are available through the Global Futures scheme. Visit the scholarship page to find out more about eligibility and how to apply.

The initial part of Research Project 1 is a supervised literature review on an important current research topic in the field. The second part of the unit will involve students formulating a research proposal that arises from their literature studies and describes their future experimental work.  

The aims of Research Project 1 are to train students in strategies

• for literature searches and information management with the aim of identifying relevant literature and data sources.
• of critical resource analysis.
• to identify important questions, formulate respective hypotheses and design experiments to address them.
• to plan and organise written reports.
• to plan and generate appropriate illustrations and their legends.
• of appropriate scientific referencing.
• of effective communication with other researchers (here your supervisor).
• of effective time management. 

Students should be able to...

• Participation in training sessions on relevant strategies of literature review and report organisation provided by unit coordinators
• Regular consultations and email exchanges with supervisor(s) starting with a project orientation meeting and starter references.  
• Regular informal contacts with research staff with overlapping interests.
• How to distinguish 'I don't understand this' from 'the answer is not known', leading to the identification of an important unsolved problem.  
• Constructive feedback to improve your scientific writing. 

• Grasp the scientific context of their future experimental project.
• undertake background work to provide themselves with the intellectual foundations for a full understanding of their chosen area, especially where interdisciplinarity demands a wider frame of reference than former training might have required.  
• report on the current state of research in a chosen area.  

Identify and isolate basic scientific and translational concepts of the area of their chosen MSc programme.

• extract gaps in scientific fields and formulate questions to address them which can be turned into scientific strategies.  
• report on the current state of research in a chosen area. 

• use library, electronic and online resources  
• use reference managing software  
• develop appropriate illustrative materials for a report

• synthesise, analyse and store data and information including the application of statistics and the use of relevant software.
• demonstrate the ability of critical thinking, including abstraction, analysis, critical judgement and the ability to formulate testable hypotheses.
• pose a problem and frame it in a fashion that is amenable to solution.
• apply communication skills in written and spoken form, including the use of illustrations, electronic media and constructive dialogue with peers and supervisors.
• use software and/or online applications for word processing, to generate illustrations, manage references, databases, spreadsheets and presentations.
• make efficient use of library, electronic and online resources.
• plan time effectively, apportioning efforts to literature research and writing in a well-balanced way, while undertaking other essential course activities
• meet agreed informal and formal deadlines for written assignments.
• use effective word processing  
• improve their own learning through planning, monitoring, critical reflection, evaluation and altering strategies  
• manage obtained data, samples and resource materials.
• make a written presentation using language appropriate to a specialist readership
• collect and integrate evidence to formulate a research hypothesis  

• Combined literature review & project proposal (≤ 6000 words; 50% of mark; assessed by supervisor / 2nd marker); submitted by end of January  
• Upload of 7 min recorded presentation followed by a 20 min viva (50% of mark; assessed by supervisor / 2nd marker); before end of January  

• Formative feedback is provided by a supervisor for the written assignment:  
  • a detailed plan of the written assignment for organisation
  • a few-page excerpt of the written assignment for academic writing style  
• Further feedback through comments and discussions during the viva  

Students will receive starter references relevant to their research projects from their Supervisor(s).