Sports scholarships for current students

Sports Student on placement with Wigan Athletic working with coaching staff.

If you are in Years 1 or 2 of a full-time undergraduate programme, or Year 1 only of a full-time foundation degree, you could develop your sporting performance by applying for a Sports Scholarship worth up to £1,000 per academic year.

Sports Scholarships have nothing to do with your financial situation, degree subject or academic achievement. If you are talented at sport and participate, coach or officiate at a competitive level, then we want to hear from you.

Scholarship benefits

There are three distinctive levels of Sports Scholarship awards with different benefits and qualification criteria.

Please note, if you are awarded a Sports Scholarship, you must make satisfactory progress in both your sporting and academic pursuits to have the scholarship renewed annually prior to your graduation, irrespective of whether you are allocated a Gold, Silver or Bronze award. This must be evidenced by completing an annual review to demonstrate your ongoing performance levels.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply for a Sports Scholarship, you must be enrolled on one of the following Edge Hill University awards:

Year 1 or Year 2 of a full-time undergraduate degree (BA/BEng/BSc/LLB/MBChB) or integrated Masters degree (MComp/MEng/MNSW/MSci)
Year 1 of a full-time foundation degree.

Please note, while MBChB Medicine and MBChB Medicine with Foundation Year students are eligible to apply for a Sports Scholarship, the scholarship benefits available may vary from those outlined above due to the longer length of these programmes.

Conversion degree (top-up) students, Erasmus students, repeat year students and permanent employees of Edge Hill University are not eligible to apply for a Sports Scholarship.

Your application will be judged to determine whether your application has been successful and, if so, to establish Gold, Silver or Bronze classification.

You will need to demonstrate that you meet one or more of the criteria below for a particular level of Sports Scholarship. The criteria serve as a preliminary guideline only and does not guarantee the receipt of a Sports Scholarship or a specific level of award. The sports National Governing Body must ideally be one that is recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Paralympic Committee (IPC) or Sport England, with the sport also being one that is recognised by British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS). A cap applies to the overall amount of money available to be awarded through Sports Scholarships.

Please note: It is not possible to receive multiple scholarships in recognition of the same achievement, or to be awarded a Sports Scholarship as a current student if you were awarded one as an applicant.

A successful application for a Sports Scholarship as a current student will also make you ineligible to receive an Excellence Scholarship. You are welcome to apply for the two awards, however, and if both applications are successful, you will be able to choose which scholarship you would prefer to receive.

Case studies

Discover more about the achievements and endeavours of recent Sports scholars with our case studies of a selection of previous winners.

Chris Heaton

Chris specialises in sprint events, including keirin track cycling, winning the White Hope Sprint and competing at junior and under 23 levels.

Isaak Dalglish

Isaak has World and European Championship medals to his name in para-badminton and aspires to a place among the world’s elite players.

Jade Sandlan

Jade holds the Golden Belt British Title in Muay Thai boxing and is ranked in the top two in Great Britain in the sport.

James Rooney

James has been crowned Lancashire Boys Golf Champion and made the final qualifying round for the Open Championship.

Lewis Fairhurst

Lewis plays rugby league at North Wales Crusaders, having also won the Four Nations tournament starring for the England Universities team.

Michael Cartmell

Michael has overcome a freak accident during a football match to be selected for the North West Cerebral Palsy team.

Millie Forrest

Millie is ranked 2nd in Great Britain and 9th in the world in discus in the F37 category for people who have cerebral palsy.

Morgan Murphy

Morgan came third in the European Open Championships in the Japanese martial art of Aikido and is now preparing for a world championship.

Sarah Hutchinson

Sarah is a rising ice hockey star in the Women’s Premier League who has also been selected to play for England and Great Britain.

How to apply

To be considered for a Sports Scholarship, you need to complete and submit our Sports Scholarship application form through the Student Life Portal. A selection panel will judge all applications received. The level of Sports Scholarship (Gold, Silver or Bronze) awarded to successful applicants will be determined by the selection panel.

If you are awarded a Sports Scholarship, you will be expected to play a significant role in raising the standard of performance of the student sports teams and must be fully committed to training and competing for the University in British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) events wherever possible.

Applications are now open and close at 11:59pm on 15 June 2026. Submit your application via the Student Life Portal.

Apply for a scholarship

Contact us

If you have any queries about Sports Scholarships, you can get in touch with us and we will be happy to assist you.

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