£18m postgraduate research funding secured by new North West partnership
26 Sep 2016
A minimum of 41 postgraduate studentships will be on offer each year for six years, after a North West consortium of HEIs bid secured more than £18m in funding from the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC)
The funding award follows the successful accreditation of a new North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP), partnering the University with Lancaster University, University of Liverpool and Keele University. The latter joins the consortium established in 2011 when the original North West Doctoral Training Centre (NWDTC) was accredited.
Reflecting on the award, Professor Maja Zehfuss, Faculty of Humanities Associate Dean for PGR said: “The NWSSDTP will create even more opportunities for our PGRs to do what they do best: conduct exciting and important research about the challenges facing societies in the 21st century, both in the UK and internationally, and take the initiative to enrich the research environment as well as engage with policy-makers and the public."
Liverpool will lead the NWSSDTP. NWSSDTP Director, Professor Gabe Mythen said:
“The funding of the NWSSDTP by the ESRC represents a significant investment in training in the North West region. By leveraging the social science strength in the constituent universities, the NWSSDTP will operate as a key national provider of expertise-led training; developing future research leaders and contributing toward social science building capacity in the UK.”
The NWSSDTP will build on the progress made by the NWDTC, which supported advanced training provision through the Methods North West platform and module exchange between each university. It also helped develop studentship opportunities with industry, at organisations such as Unilever, Save the Children and the Office for National Statistics. The addition of Keele University to the new group brings policy-relevant interdisciplinary areas and increases the NWSSDTP’s reach to a wider range of social science students. In addition to the facilities at the partner institutions, NWSSDTP funded students will have access to additional funding and support towards fieldwork, overseas institutional visits and internship opportunities.
"Being a PhD researcher funded by ESRC’s NWDTC was immensely beneficial for my professional and personal development. It offered me opportunities to engage with other PhDs from diverse disciplines throughout the North West and reinforced my conviction that having an impact and engaging with the public is essential for researchers."
Judith Krauss, NWDTC-funded student in Development & Policy Management at The University of Manchester
The NWSSDTP will work closely with the two ESRC funded Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs), which involve Manchester. The two new CDTs will provide training in focused thematic interdisciplinary areas: Data stream and Biosocial. They will both allocate a further 10 studentships each per year. It is worth noting that the University of Manchester is the only University in the UK to have been successful under each of the DTP and CDT calls.
Competitions for studentships will go live at the end of this month. The first competition, which closes in November, invites proposals for collaborative PhD studentships with organisations outside higher education. The second competition is open to all prospective students wishing to apply for funding towards their postgraduate studies, and will close in February 2017.
Further information
More information will be available on the new website launching next week: