External Project Selection

External Project Selection#

Projects with main supervisors not affiliated with Imperial College London are classified as external.

Note

This page is available before projects are advertised to allow students to familiarise themselves with the selection and allocation procedure. The list of available projects will be advertised in February 2026.

Important

All external projects are treated as confidential. To access the list of available external projects, you must be logged in with your Imperial College London account:

TBC in February 2026

To apply for external projects, fill out the following form:

TBC in February 2026

Selection rules:

  • Enter external project codes (e.g. abcd-001 or xyzw-122).

  • Your choices are not ranked in order of preference.

  • Submitting earlier does not increase your chances of being shortlisted - take your time to make an informed decision.

Warning

The deadline to submit your external projects selection is 2 March 2026, 10:00 GMT.

Have your CV and motivation letter ready. If shortlisted, you will be asked to apply to the main supervisor within a few days after the selection deadline. This is your opportunity to stand out - tailor your application carefully.

Resubmissions: If you have already submitted the form and want to make changes, fill it out again. Only your most recent submission before the deadline will be considered.

Questions about projects: All questions about external projects (project scope, work location, whether the position is paid, etc.) must be discussed directly with the main supervisor/company. The IRP Team vets all external projects academically but does not have detailed administrative information about each project. If shortlisted, you will receive the main supervisor’s email to contact them directly.

Important

We do our best to shortlist as many students as possible, but this is not always possible. Therefore, we strongly encourage you to propose your own project by contacting potential supervisors directly (see Student-Proposed Projects).

Allocation procedure#

  1. Supervisors submit project offers (deadline usually early February).

  2. Projects advertised to students (February 2026).

  3. Students select up to N projects.

  4. IRP Team shortlists students for each external project based on their current ECTS-weighted mean marks.

  5. Shortlisted students apply directly to main supervisors. We contact shortlisted candidates asking them to send their CVs and motivation letters to the main supervisor. We notify supervisors whose applications to expect, sharing only the student’s name, email, and course.

  6. Supervisors review candidates. Supervisors decide their own selection process, including whom to interview and their assessment criteria. The IRP Team does not interfere with this process. Supervisors group candidates into unsuccessful and successful categories, with successful candidates ranked by preference as well as the number of candidates they can accept. Since students can receive multiple offers, we encourage external supervisors to rank multiple candidates as successful whenever possible. All decisions must be received before the early-April deadline.

  7. Offers sent to successful candidates in ranked order. Students are given a maximum of 2 working days to accept or decline. If accepted, the IRP Team allocates the student to that project. If declined or the deadline is missed, the offer goes to the next candidate. Decisions for all external projects are communicated only after the early-April deadline.

Warning

The IRP Team reserves the right to adapt or revise the outlined procedures as necessary.

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