The awards replace the nine different schemes through which UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) currently supports doctoral training.
The schemes build on a rich history of doctoral investments which support discovery-driven research at universities across the UK.
The investment of more than £500 million announced today (13 November 2024) will support doctoral students to develop their skills and experience in their respective universities’ areas of strength across the:
- biological sciences
- engineering and physical sciences
- natural and environmental sciences
Skills the students will develop will prepare them for a diverse range of careers, both in research and innovation and across the public and private sectors. At least 25% of studentships will be delivered in collaboration with non-academic partners.
Unlocking the discoveries
Science and Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, said:
Backing the next generation of great scientific minds to fulfil their potential is crucial to unlocking the discoveries which improve our lives and which keep our economy growing over the long term through highly skilled jobs.
This £500m investment will back our vitally important higher education sector while supporting more bright students to pursue their talents and in turn deliver the life-saving drugs and clean energy alternatives of the future, that benefit all of our lives.
Society and economic growth
UKRI Chief Executive, Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, said:
UKRI’s investments in Doctoral Training are pivotal for the UK’s research and innovation endeavour.
The awards provide funding for Universities across the UK to nurture a cadre of creative, talented people to develop their skills and knowledge, to build partnerships and networks, and to pursue the discoveries that will transform tomorrow, with diverse benefits for society and economic growth.
Research council funding
The funding, worth more than £500 million, will be allocated through three of UKRI’s research councils.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Marking an important step in UKRI’s transition to a collective talent funding model, the joint BBSRC and NERC Doctoral Landscape Awards will invest £293 million in more than 2,300 studentships at 21 universities across five cohorts.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
EPSRC will invest £279 million in university doctoral landscape awards, which they will use to support around 2,400 studentships at 40 universities over three annual intakes. This will train the next generation of researchers and innovators to enhance UK national capability.
Through curiosity-driven research, these doctoral students will advance knowledge in industries such as renewable energy, manufacturing and materials science to foster economic growth and provide a skilled workforce.
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
NERC will invest a further £11.4 million to support around 90 studentships through four doctoral focal awards across three cohorts.
UKRI Doctoral Investment Framework
The awards follow the launch of the UKRI Doctoral Investment Framework in 2023, part of UKRI’s transition to collective talent funding which aims to simplify and harmonise talent focused investments. The framework structures doctoral support around two types of award, doctoral landscape awards and doctoral focal awards.
Doctoral landscape awards provide:
- broad, flexible funding to support talented doctoral students to contribute to a vibrant, internationally attractive and world-leading research and innovation system
- breadth and diversity in the research supported and to ensure that as a community we are rapidly responsive to new and emerging research ideas and areas
- opportunities for a variety of engagement with non-academic partners
Doctoral focal awards provide:
- funding for research training in specific, tightly focused themes or challenges
Both awards can support a number of different training programmes, providing a simple but flexible offer. They also both provide opportunities for non-academic partners to engage in a variety of ways. This includes:
- opportunities to lead some of UKRI’s doctoral investments (for example, Industrial Landscape awards)
- supporting alignment to strategic priorities
- the co-design of student projects and experiences to bridge academia and industry giving students valuable experience of non-academic settings
Further information
BBSRC-NERC doctoral landscape awards
The BBSRC-NERC doctoral landscape awards were managed through a competitive funding opportunity that opened in January 2024. More than 465 students will be awarded in the first cohort, spanning 21 lead institutions across all four nations. Research topics span the breadth of council remits and include:
- artificial intelligence (AI) for bioscience
- Earth, ecology and environment
- food biosystems
- one health
- exascale computing for Earth, environmental and sustainability solutions
EPSRC doctoral landscape awards
EPSRC university doctoral landscape awards offer flexible funding to higher education institutions. The funding is allocated to UK universities with significant EPSRC research activity, by means of an algorithm. The algorithm is based on the profile of competitively won EPSRC research funding.
EPSRC has given universities more flexibility in how they use this funding, compared to previous similar awards.
In particular, universities have been encouraged to pilot initiatives to promote career mobility and widen participation in doctoral study, including:
- internships
- innovative approaches to recruitment
- postdoctoral support to exploit the outcomes of doctoral study
NERC doctoral focal awards
NERC’s doctoral focal awards address priority or emerging training needs within the environmental sciences. Each of the four awards will support 24 notional students across three annual intakes.
ECOSOLUTIONS: transforming chemical management for a non-toxic future doctoral focal award (led by the University of Sheffield)
ECOSOLUTIONS will train transdisciplinary, solution-focused PhD students who can apply systems-thinking to facilitate the delivery of a non-toxic UK environment and sustainable chemicals products sector.
UNRISK: understanding uncertainty to reduce climate risks doctoral focal award (led by the University of Leeds)
UNRISK will train students with the multidisciplinary knowledge and skills across climate science, data science and decision science to tackle the pressing challenge of reducing the risks associated with rapid climate change.
AI-INTERVENE: AI for unlocking datasets for biodiversity assessment and prediction doctoral focal award (led by the University of Reading)
AI-INTERVENE’s vision is to produce a new generation of AI-empowered data scientists equipped with the required AI expertise, data science tools, ecological knowledge and wider interdisciplinary skillset needed to unlock the full potential of the wealth of existing as well as emerging sources of biodiversity data.
NETGAIN: developing the science and practice of nature markets for a net positive future doctoral focal award (led by the University of St Andrews)
NETGAIN will train a new generation of multidisciplinary scientist-practitioners to transform the landscape of nature markets, ensuring effective, evidence-based solutions to the world’s most urgent environmental challenges.
BBSRC set to invest in two further schemes
As part of UKRI’s ongoing commitment to enhancing the UK’s research and innovation ecosystem, BBSRC is set to invest in two further schemes that will work in harmony to address strategic skill and capacity challenges across the UK bioeconomy.
The schemes are:
- the Industrial Doctoral Landscape Award 2024 to 2025, which will fund organisations outside academia to lead collaborative, cohort-based doctoral programmes that align with their strategic priorities. Join our live webinar on 19 November to find out more
- BBSRC’s Doctoral Focal Awards, launching in early 2025, which will target high-priority thematic areas. The inaugural round of funding will be dedicated to two themes: ‘engineering biology’, and ‘data science and AI for biology’. The engineering biology theme will be a joint funding opportunity with NERC
Outcomes of the Industrial Doctoral Landscape Awards
EPSRC will also announce the outcomes of its Industrial Doctoral Landscape Awards in 2025.
Previous investments
Impacts from previous investments include:
Wild Bio
Former University of Oxford student Ross Hendron established Wild Bio, a spin-out launched with £12 million of seed capital, the largest ever seed fundraise in plant science in Europe.
The company aims to tackle the challenges of global food security and climate change by pioneering a revolutionary approach to crop improvement. It aims to make crops such as wheat and maize grow faster and more productive by integrating expertise in plant biology with computer algorithms to analyse crop genetics.
WE50 Engineering Heroes
Dr Jennifer Olsen was named as one of the Women in Engineering Society’s ‘WE50 Engineering Heroes’ for her PhD work at Newcastle University, improving the function and comfort of prosthetic limbs.
She did this by investigating new materials, manufacturing methods and socket designs, computer aided design, 3D printing, and collaborating with healthcare professionals to bridge the gap between academic research and clinical practice.
Reducing exposure to harmful air pollution
Former PhD student, Dr Roland Leigh, is Chief Technical Officer at Earthsense, where he leads a team developing tools used by millions of people globally to reduce public and personal exposure to harmful air pollution.
Poor air quality is the largest environmental risk to public health in the UK and is linked to shorter lifespans and chronic diseases like asthma.
Top image: Credit: SDI Productions, E+ via Getty Images