Venture Science Doctorate: venture-creation PhD program; funded scholarship

The Venture Science Doctorate (VSD) program, 3rd cohort, starting January 2026.

Applications for the January 2026 intake are now CLOSED. You can still submit an application if you're interested in being considered for future programs.

The world’s first 3‑year venture creation focused PhD program run by Deep Science Venture College at Woolf University, a globally recognised, decentralised institution widening access to higher education. Our focus is exclusively on solving global challenges in health, climate, agriculture and computation through science as the basis for designing research projects from first‑principles, and creating new companies founded by candidates based on this research.

The VSD is backed by a philanthropic consortium of mission‑aligned partners, including Schmidt Futures, Innovate UK and SPRIN‑D (Germany), and embedded in a global R&D coalition of universities and national labs, including the National Physical Laboratory, the James Hutton Institute, Imperial College, Max Planck, the University of Edinburgh, University College London, Goldsmiths, the University of London, Cornell University, the Mayo Clinic, and many others.

Full details of the program, including FAQs and prospectus download available on the dedicated VSD site here
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Year 1 – Candidates familiarise themselves with a given industry and map the landscape to identify high‑impact venture opportunities. In the Scoping process, candidates identify the optimal solution to a given problem, perform lab work to develop hypotheses, and contact partner research groups for further experimentation.

Year 2 – Focused on invention and further development of the initial hypotheses, working within leading research groups to prove the technology against the original hypothesis and validate it through techno‑economic analysis.

Year 3 – Building on the research from the previous two years to develop a scalable technology capable of product‑market fit. If necessary, candidates may join multiple research groups. Having validated the technology, candidates work with experienced venture partners to build a complementary team and a solid investment case before venture incorporation and spin‑out. At incorporation, all intellectual property is transferred into the new venture, which the candidate continues to lead as a co‑founder, with continuous support from DSV.

• Impact‑driven and have demonstrated interest in investigating or solving large‑scale societal problems in climate, agriculture, health or computation.
• Want to build a global science‑based company that will make a huge positive impact.
• Entrepreneurial and can share examples of past experience related to innovation, new technology development, startups, etc.
• Have a Masters degree related to science/engineering (BSc and equivalent also accepted, PhD also accepted).
• Determined enough to spend 1 week, during the application process, finding an optimal approach to a societal problem in your own time, using Deep Science Ventures' scoping ideation methodology.

• Deep Science Ventures College will cover tuition and all other expenses related to programme curriculum and research activities; each student will receive a monthly stipend of £2,800 (living costs + health insurance subsidy). Upon spin‑out you/your co‑founder(s) will hold majority ownership in the venture.
• Join a global community of >200 science entrepreneurs across our portfolio and programs.
• Work with some of the world's most entrepreneurial professors, research labs and government agencies supporting the VSD.
• Access top‑tier investors/funders backing deep‑tech ventures.

Deep Science Ventures is creating a future in which both humans and the planet can thrive.

We use our unique venture creation process to create, invest in, and spin‑out science companies. We empower entrepreneurial scientists to combine scientific expertise and business models to synthesize high‑impact ventures de novo.

We are a team of operators who have founded companies and led the translation of science at some of the most respected universities, charities, funds, and government agencies. Two thirds of the team have…