Perhaps one of the less well-known benefits of being a member of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth) is access to the range of scholarships, awards and prizes that we offer. Many of you will be aware of the annual RCOphth Essay Prize for Foundation Doctors, but did you know that one of the ways that the College demonstrates a commitment to advancing eye health is by offering several different awards for ophthalmologists at all stages of their career?
Each year, the College works with a number of external partners including Fight For Sight and the Keeler Foundation to offer a generous number of scholarships, travel awards and clinical / research fellowships in partnership with other organisations. These cover a wide variety of areas, from specialist research, to help with funding placements and overseas travel.
An RCOphth award grant is a great way to help you to develop your CV, build your professional network, enhance continued professional development future career opportunities, and contribute to research, service development and audits for the benefit of eyecare services in the UK and elsewhere.
The College recently carried out a review of our scholarships, prizes and awards programme, reaching out to over 50 prize winners from previous years. Of which, 81% stated that receiving an RCOphth award had a positive impact on their medical studies or career that they would not have benefited from otherwise.
The College currently offers the following opportunities (although not all are open for applications at the same time):
Keeler Scholarship
The purpose of this scholarship is to enable the Keeler Scholar, for the subsequent benefit of ophthalmology in the UK, to study, research or acquire special skills, knowledge or experience at a suitable location in the UK or elsewhere for a minimum period of six months. The value of the Keeler Scholarship is up to £30,000. Destinations for recent Keeler scholars have included Yokohama City University Medical Centre and Kobe Eye Centre (Japan), Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital (Melbourne), Shiley Eye Institute, University of California San Diego (USA), and the Emory Eye Center (Atlanta, USA). The Trustees of the Keeler Scholarship will give special consideration to candidates intending to make a career in ophthalmology in the UK.
Sir William Lister and Dorey Bequest Travel Awards
These awards are for ophthalmologists in training, to provide funding for a period of travel or research. The number and value of the awards will be determined by the state of the funds and the candidate’s requirements, but the amount awarded is generally between £300 and £1000. This award has been going for over 30 years and destinations for recent recipients include research in Sierra Leone, Melbourne and Vancouver. Fight For Sight Zakarian Awards Co-funded with our partner, Fight For Sight, the purpose of this award is to fund a research project which allows College members to develop their research experience and skills which may lead to future opportunities. The maximum amount available to be awarded is £25,000. The Zakarian Awards are designed to support three categories of researchers:
- Ophthalmology trainees not in the IATS or other research training posts seeking to undertake research. Support can be sought for consumables, equipment and open access dissemination and for salary support to buy ‘time out’ from a training programme to undertake research.
- Academic Clinical Fellow (NIHR IATS ACF) ophthalmology trainees seeking to prepare preliminary / pilot data to develop their proposed PhD projects and / or doctoral research training funding applications. Support can be sought for consumables, equipment and open access dissemination.
- Consultants or SAS ophthalmologists holding NHS substantive contracts and without dedicated research time (PAs in job plan). Those holding academic posts / contracts are ineligible. Support can be sought for buying out time in the job plan for research, or for consumables or equipment to establish a research project.
The College and Fight For Sight are especially keen to support those without any or very limited prior research experience and / or those not in academic posts in order to help them get started in research, in line with RCOphth’s position statement on Ophthalmic Research By All [1].
Jack Kanski Award for an Outstanding Ophthalmic Educator
Being the recipient of a lifetime award may be very far from the thoughts of most resident doctors but the College’s flagship education award is the prestigious Jack Kanski Award for an Outstanding Ophthalmic Educator.
As you will know, Jack Kanski was a Consultant Ophthalmologist whose influence was primarily in the transfer of knowledge. Having published over 30 textbooks, ophthalmologists and ophthalmic professionals around the world have benefited from his endeavours. This award is only made every three years and following a very generous endowment from Mrs Val Kanski (Jack Kanski’s widow), the awardee will receive £5000 in addition to the Jack Kanski Award.
The ethos of the award is that the winner should have displayed a clear passion for education. The areas of recognition include, but are not limited to, educational activity, leadership and scholarship in education.
Chandra Award
The final major award that the College offers is the Chandra Award, established in the name of, and now offered in the memory of, Girish Chandra, who came from modest beginnings in India to further his ophthalmic career in the UK in the 1960s. He subsequently worked in numerous countries in North America and Asia.
The aim of the award is to allow doctors from outside the UK to come to the UK for training or a period of clinical observation. Girish Chandra recognised that the chance to train in the UK is a valuable and cherished opportunity, and he hoped that this award will facilitate this for future ophthalmologists.
Applicants need to have already secured a training or observer post to be able to apply for this award. Past recipients of the Chandra Award have come from King George Medical University (India), Miguel Servantes Hospital (Spain) and Save Sight Centre Eye Hospital (India), whilst host institutions have included Moorfields Eye Hospital and Southend University Hospital.
The amount of funding available is up to £1000. Whilst UK resident doctors are not eligible to apply for this award, the College would request that you raise awareness of this valuable award through any global ophthalmology contacts that you may have.
These awards run throughout the year and details of current awards are always to be found on the ‘Scholarships, Awards and Prizes’ page of the College website [2]. The College is aiming to diversify its range of awards as part of our 2026 Operational Plan so please do check the website at intervals for new awards. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me directly (details in author bio).
Other scholarships and awards
Unaffiliated with the College and its partners, there are a large number of varied opportunities and pots of funding available to resident doctors and others at every stage of their career:
- Sight Research UK’s Translational Research Award: supporting research projects, with the aim of developing projects into practice.
- The David and Molly Pyott Foundation Scholarships in Ophthalmology: online distance learning scholarships in the field of ophthalmology for students from Africa, Central and South Asia, Caribbean Islands, Pacific Islands, Central and Latin America.
- T.F.C. Frost Charitable Trust Clinical Fellowship Funding: scholarships, travel awards and clinical / research fellowships in partnership with numerous organisations.
- Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh: Ophthalmology Small Research Support Grant: provides funding for new research, medical projects outside of research, and supporting educational development.
- The Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers: eligible to courses Level 4 and above, or diploma / undergraduate study in the UK for a career in eye health.
- Bright Stars University Scholarship: Specsavers offers future optometry students the possibility of a scholarship alongside part-time work at local branches.
Should you need any further incentive to consider applying for an award, I will leave you with the words of one previous College award recipient: “Receiving the award has been an unbelievable experience that has significantly bolstered not only my current interests but also my future career trajectory.”
References
1. www.rcophth.ac.uk/academic-and-research/research
2. www.rcophth.ac.uk/events-courses/scholarships-awards-prizes
All links last accessed November 2025.
Declaration of competing interests: None declared.
