Between 2017 and 2023, ESRC supported two Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) alongside our doctoral training partnerships, to provide training in focused, thematic, interdisciplinary research areas. Led by research leaders, CDTs develop training in new and emerging areas.
ESRC is supporting a Centre for Doctoral Training plus as part of a wider £17 million investment to establish a national capability in behavioural research focusing on the UK’s ability to address societal challenges, such as the climate crisis, new technologies, security and health and wellbeing issues, through the lens of human behaviour.
Centre for National Training and Research Excellence in Understanding Behaviours (CENTRE-UB)
CENTRE-UB will be led by Professor Jessica Woodhams of the University of Birmingham with local, national and international partners from across the public and private sector.
Funding is available to support three cohorts of students and three cohorts of early career fellows, starting in October 2024. CENTRE-UB will also deliver an additional programme of training and development activities for researchers in government and other sectors.
It will:
- produce PhD graduates able to address the needs of policymakers, business, and civil society
- develop a cohort of early career researchers able to pursue a career in applied behavioural research within and outside of academia
- deliver a flexible training and development programme for researchers in government and other sectors that accelerates the use behavioural research findings and methods in local and national decision making
Find out more from the University of Birmingham.
Director: Professor Jessica Woodhams
Enquiries: centre-ubehaviour@contacts.bham.ac.uk
Soc-B (Social-Biological) Centre for Doctoral Training
This CDT has been developed with partners from outside universities. It supports innovative interdisciplinary training at the interface between the social and biological sciences.
The centre combines the strengths of UCL and the Universities of Manchester and Essex.
The centre is involved in:
- exploiting the breadth of biosocial data
- developing technological and methodological innovations
- exploring the legal and ethical issues exposed by the biosocial agenda in the UK and internationally.
Each applicant can decide on their own specific area of enquiry.
Students are expected to have a social or biological science background, but each studentship must be at least 50% within the social sciences.
Find out more from UCL on the Soc-B (Social-Biological) Centre for Doctoral Training.
Director: Professor Yvonne Kelly
Enquiries: socbcdt@ucl.ac.uk
Data Analytics and Society Centre for Doctoral Training
This CDT has been developed with partners from outside universities to explore:
- real-time data analysis
- data linkage and interoperability of data from different sources.
The centre focuses on new forms of data in a broad sense and on the opportunities provided by these data to study social processes as they unfold.
The centre combines the strengths of the universities of Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield.
The applicant can decide on their approach and the data sources that they want to use.
Find out more from the Data Analytics and Society CDT.
Director: Professor Mark Birkin
Enquiries: datacdt@leeds.ac.uk
Last updated: 26 September 2024