Support People
Students, Teaching, and Research
Our People
As a College we aim to attract the brightest young minds from all backgrounds, and support our academics, tutors, and early career fellows with the resources they need to deliver the highest standard of teaching and research.
“Alumni support continues to play a vital role in supporting College’s present and future generations. Over the last year your generosity has opened doors for students who might otherwise not have the opportunity to study here. It has also created more undergraduate bursaries ensuring that disadvantaged students can benefit from all that Oxford offers. Your donations have also supported our wonderful tutorial system – which is central to the undergraduate experience – and teaching fellows. Support has also recently created exciting opportunities for our researchers and our wider academic community in subjects such as Medicine and Computer Science. We are incredibly grateful to all of our donors to Jesus who, through their donations, help advance the College’s academic mission year after year.”
– Dr Alexandra Lumbers
Academic Director and Fellow
Support Students
“Affordability and access are a core part of our College mission. We believe the only real measure of a student’s worth should be their intellect and potential, and that finance should never be a barrier to receiving an Oxford education.”
– Dr Matthew Williams
Access Fellow and Tutor in Politics
Graduate Studentships
We compete for the best graduate student talent from the U.K. and overseas. To attract these students, we need to be in a position to offer competitive scholarships that match not only other Oxbridge colleges, but also the U.S. Ivy League and other leading global institutions. This means offering a financial package that covers course fees, supports the cost of living, and provides the student with opportunities to travel, network, and apply for generous research grants.
Our graduates are bright, engaged, and creative; they are some of the most promising future academics and researchers in their fields. Around 18% of our graduates receive some sort of financial support from College each year, but it is imperative we continue to improve our scholarship offering across all academic disciplines to be considered a top choice destination for graduate study.
The difference of providing graduate support is life changing. Put simply, in most cases it can mean the option of continuing one’s studies or not. We therefore seek funding for an increased number of Graduate Studentships in all disciplines, to ensure that ability and determination are the only preconditions for a graduate research career at Jesus.
Graduate student support is also a wider priority for Oxford and there are a number of ways to have your gift matched with potential funding from the University or participating faculties. We encourage potential donors to get in touch with us to discuss your subject of interest and explore potential support options. We aim particularly to fund areas that may not otherwise attract funding, so that we can continue to provide the broad and balanced scholarship needed by the world beyond our walls.
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“I am a first-year and although I’m only in my second term, I already feel at home in Oxford, especially thanks to the friendly and welcoming atmosphere at Jesus College. I would like to express my gratitude for the chance of pursuing my DPhil here, in such an intellectually stimulating environment, surrounded by extremely smart, interesting people, and working with one of the most influential contemporary philosophers as my supervisor. Until recently, I never imagined that I would have this opportunity, especially having attended non-élite universities, and not coming from a wealthy family background. Considering that doing my DPhil here will also probably open up more chances for a future academic career, I have to say that I really owe a lot to the generous donor who contributed to fund my scholarship, making all of this possible.”
Elisabetta Sassarini
2022, DPhil Philosophy
The AHRC 450th Anniversary Studentship in Philosophy
Undergraduate Bursaries
Jesus College is committed to making sure an Oxford education can remain an affordable option for all. Despite the decline in state funding for the university sector, around 30% of our undergraduate students receive some form of means-tested financial aid from College each year, and we aim to improve this provision with the creation of new bursaries.
Support for our undergraduates remains the most popular cause with our alumni and is always welcome. The more bursaries we make available, the closer we can come to a needs-blind admission policy and uphold our ethos of being a fully open, inclusive, and meritocratic institution. Undergraduate bursaries have a proven impact at Jesus and the availability of bursary support can change lives.
Bursary Spotlight
The Michael Sheen Bursary
The Michael Sheen Bursary has been developed in collaboration with, and is generously supported by, eminent Welsh actor and activist Michael Sheen. This named bursary provides much-needed spend-down financial support for Welsh undergraduate students at Jesus.
“Where you come from and the financial circumstances of your background should not be a barrier to those of talent and excellence receiving much needed support and development. Jesus College, Oxford has had a long and fruitful relationship to Wales since its founding in 1571 and it gives me great pleasure to use what resources I have to help young Welsh students of real potential get the opportunities for learning there that they deserve as much as anyone else. I hope that these bursaries not only make it possible for Welsh students to take advantage of the educational possibilities at Jesus but also help to encourage a sense of what is possible for young Welsh people generally.”
– Michael Sheen, actor and activist
Bursary Spotlight
The Dr John Walsh Bursary
Dr John Walsh came to Oxford in 1958 and was a Fellow and Tutor in History at Jesus until 1992. As a Tutorial Fellow, John was outstanding. His courteous concern for all of his students was always paramount. Former undergraduate historians credit him with opening their minds to whole new ways of thinking about History and about the world.
As a testimony to his relationship with College, and his wide-reaching popularity across the College community during his time as a Tutorial Fellow, donations for this bursary endowment appeal brought together alumni support from a range of subject backgrounds, all of whom remembered John with great affection.
John cared most for his students, undergraduate and graduate, and the Walsh family is grateful for such a fitting tribute to his legacy. This named bursary provides much-needed endowed financial support for an undergraduate historian at Jesus.
Professor Armand D'Angour, Lecturer in Classics
Support Teaching
We wish to protect the unique educational experience provided by the Oxford tutorial system, whilst also putting Jesus in the strongest possible position to meet the educational and research needs of the future. Most importantly, we need to attract the very best teaching talent to Jesus College, retain and motivate our Tutorial Fellows and Lecturers, and foster the unique research-led teaching that will inspire a new generation of students.
We believe this form of teaching is vital to an Oxford education, but the government funding we receive only covers half of the teaching costs for College, meaning that we need to raise additional funds to sustain this special teaching system and support our tutors.
Tutorial Fellowships
Tutorial Fellows play an essential role at Jesus in guiding our students to think critically. Many of our Tutorial Fellows and Lecturers are exceptional researchers in their own right and greatly enjoy teaching. Tutorial Fellows combine their expertise and genuine enthusiasm for their subject with a desire to help our students realise their intellectual potential.
Weekly tutorials in College are where subject knowledge crystalises and is where our students are encouraged to seek answers, defend their views, and build the confidence and skills necessary for their academic success and for their future. By helping to subsidise the cost of our Tutorial Fellows, you help ensure that current and future Jesus students will benefit from the same mentorship, teaching, and care had by previous generations.
Support Research
College Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs) and Career Development Fellowships (CDFs) are competitive fixed-term fellowships for scholars to pursue independent research after the completion of their doctorate, and they are a vital stepping stone for those early in their careers. We need to provide resources for early career academics in order to help them expand their networks and to foster a stable environment where they are given the time, support and opportunities needed to progress in their fields.
Support for JRFs and CDFs is welcome across all disciplines and helps College to deepen the diversity of academic interest within the Fellowship. Candidates for JRFs are selected competitively on the basis of the quality, originality and importance of their research.
Support Spotlight
Junior Research Fellowship in Climate Change
Professor Thomas Phillips and his wife Dr Jocelyn Keene provided vital spend-down funding of £125,000 to support a College JRF in Climate Change. Professor Phillips was College’s first Research Fellow in Physics in 1963 and wanted to give a young researcher a similar opportunity to that which he received at Jesus.
The Professor Thomas Phillips and Dr Jocelyn Keene JRF in Climate Change was the first of its kind held at Jesus and was designed to work collaboratively within the Oxford Department of Physics to advance the study of climates and climate evolution of Earth and other planets. The post-holder, Dr Kristian Strommen, worked specifically on long-term climate projections and on seasonal predictability of the Euro-Atlantic winter.
