Centres for doctoral training
NERC is seeking to invest in three new CDTs. These challenge-led CDTs will produce the next generation of internationally recognised doctoral researchers with each CDT supporting PhD studentships, creating a community aimed at addressing a specific research challenge and related skills gap.
There is funding for each of the three CDTs to receive 24 notional studentships over the course of three annual intakes.
Applications must identify the challenge of focus for the CDT and justify the specific need for doctoral training in this area.
The CDT model is designed to support a translational approach by encouraging academic and non-academic partners to unite around common challenges.
It is expected that the CDT should integrate end-user involvement in developing and delivering the training required. An expectation is that this funding will be used to leverage additional investment (either cash or in-kind support) from stakeholders where appropriate.
Applications must be centred within NERC’s remit but interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary CDTs extending more widely across the breadth of UKRI are welcome.
Training remit
Training provided by the CDT should be:
Training delivered by these CDTs may build on existing training infrastructure where applicable, and engagement with other relevant research council CDTs and Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) and their end-user networks is encouraged.
Applications must outline a coherent training programme through which students will both undertake individual research projects and receive cohort-level training, in cross-cutting skills relevant to the CDT’s challenge area.
Other training requirements
In addition to the above, there are a number of transferable professional, technical and personal development training requirements that must be delivered by the CDTs funded through this funding opportunity:
- access for all CDT students to placements, internships or other relevant work experience opportunities (this includes UKRI policy internships). This does not mean that all students must complete a placement, but that these opportunities must be available to all, and training programmes should be designed with the flexibility to enable students to undertake such work experience opportunities if they wish to do so
- explicit careers training and continuous professional development relevant to both academic and non-academic career trajectories. Careers training must take place suitably early in students’ training to enable it to inform their choice of training opportunities
- strong end-user involvement with all levels of CDT training
- dedicated professional skills, and innovation or translation training available to all CDT students
- access for all students to appropriate data skills training
- opportunities to network across DTP, CDT and research council cohorts and gain multidisciplinary perspectives
- training need analysis or equivalent for all students at the outset of training, and the opportunity to discuss individual training requirements throughout their doctorate
- discussion of training needs and available opportunities, these should take place in discussion with end-users as appropriate and be placed within the context of potential future careers
- clear guidance and training on mental health awareness as part of CDT induction process for staff and students outlining how to access support for mental health issues encountered during the PhD
It is important to show how this will be implemented and managed by the CDT across hosting partner institutions.
Funding opportunity requirements
Capability to deliver
You must provide evidence within your application that you offer sufficient high quality research capacity to deliver training in challenge area of your proposed CDT. You should also justify your choice of partnership which can include international collaborative partners as appropriate to deliver the objectives of the training programme.
While research capability is an important aspect of a successful CDT, the assessment process will balance this against the full assessment criteria for the funding opportunity.
Collaboration with end-users and non-HEI partners
Collaboration with a variety of non-higher education institution (HEI) partners is vital for:
- delivery of excellent multidisciplinary training
- framing research questions to ensure production of research outputs with real-world applications of direct relevance and use to the environmental science community as a whole
Applications must be for challenge-led CDTs and therefore collaboration with end-users and other non-HEI partners should form a significant part of the CDT’s training programme, at both the design and delivery stage.
Successful applications will demonstrate clearly how students will benefit from engagement with multiple types of organisations, on both an individual and cohort level, via a variety of mechanisms.
Applications must evidence a track record of collaborative working and describe a coherent strategy for engaging with multiple stakeholders.
An expectation of the CDT is that NERC funding will be used to leverage additional investment (either cash or in-kind support) from multiple stakeholders.
In addition, you should:
- ensure that a number of studentships offered by the CDT are CASE or ‘collaborative’ studentships (see the ‘CASE studentships’ section)
- embed collaboration with end-users through mechanisms in addition to CASE (for example, placements, training courses or site visits) for all doctoral students within their wider training programme
You must demonstrate clearly within your application how this will be achieved.
CASE studentships
The CDT must ensure that a minimum of 25% of the notional studentships, are delivered as formal CASE studentships. It is important that this requirement is adhered to, and compliance will be monitored via reporting processes. You must demonstrate in your application the mechanisms you will use to ensure the CASE conversion requirement is met.
CASE studentships must be delivered in collaboration with non-academic partners from industry, business, public and the third or civil sectors. Organisations eligible to receive NERC research funding will not be eligible to act as a CASE partner. This includes research institutes, independent research organisations (IROs) and Catapult centres.
Check eligible research institutes, IROs and Catapult centres.
As an exception to the above, public sector research establishments (PSREs) are eligible to act as CASE partners for NERC studentships. As already noted, PSREs wishing to be involved in an application are required to choose whether they wish to do so as either a hosting partner or a CASE partner.
Collaborative (non-CASE) studentships
In addition to CASE studentships, any number of CDT studentships may be ‘collaborative’ (in other words have no formal partnership requirements or project partners not eligible to be CASE partners).
These collaborative studentships will also be monitored and recorded through reporting processes and will be formally recognised by NERC as a success metric as part of its ongoing monitoring of CDT performance.
Applications must describe how such collaborative relationships will be developed and maintained, and the benefits they will provide to students’ training.
Management
The CDT must have strong leadership and management. It should have both a lead operational manager and steering committee or management board.
The steering committee or management board should be comprised of all hosting CDT partners and must also have representation from relevant end-user organisations.
It will have overall responsibility for the effective governance of the CDT and its relationship with NERC and provide a strategic needs framework to aid the prioritisation and development of PhD projects.
The CDT must demonstrate that robust and transparent governance arrangements will be in place from the outset of the CDT, which may include the development of formal partnership agreements, communication plans and systems for monitoring the CDT’s overall progress and success.
You are strongly encouraged to incorporate CDT students into the management and running of activities within the CDT. Where appropriate, formal partnership agreements must be in place ahead of the start of the first student cohort.
The CDT must also commit adequate support for appropriate administrative resource, and proposals must be explicit about how administrative structures will be managed and funded.
Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
We must ensure that we support the most talented students whatever their background and regardless of where and when they undertook their first degree.
To ensure that this happens, NERC requires that EDI principles are embedded at all levels and in all aspects of research and training practice in the successful CDTs. You should refer to NERC’s best practice principles in recruitment and training at doctoral level. The successful CDTs will be expected to implement these best practice principles.
NERC expects you to think imaginatively and demonstrate in your proposal your strategy for EDI to enable wide participation and promote postgraduate research to a diverse base of talented graduate students. In particular, consideration should be given to training programme flexibility and the ability to address individual students’ needs.
The successful CDTs’ strategies and commitments in this area will be reviewed regularly as part of NERC’s reporting and monitoring programme and NERC will seek to collect information on characteristics of the student population accordingly from the successful CDTs.
Read about UKRI’s work on EDI.
Funding
NERC will award eight notional studentships a year for three years, to each of the successful CDTs.
A notional studentship consists of sufficient funds to meet the annual research council minimum stipend and fee levels, plus additional research and management costs as outlined below, for four full years of doctoral study.
It is expected that individual students will undertake training over a variety of timeframes (between three and four years as appropriate, depending on the discipline, project and the student’s experience and knowledge).
The indicative funding per notional studentship is provided below. The student stipend and fees are indicative estimates only, based on the 2022 to 2023 research council minima multiplied by four, and excluding London allowance (at the time of award, stipend and fees will be indexed to accommodate rises in the minimum stipend and fees levels over the lifetime of the award).
The research training support grant (RTSG) and management costs are fixed:
- student stipend: £70,672
- fees: £18,384
- research training support grant: £11,000
- management costs: £1,500
- total: £101,556
CDTs will have flexibility in how they use the funding awarded (subject to the normal UKRI terms and conditions of training grants), as long as the minimum numbers of students are supported each year (the minimum being the number of notional studentships allocated by NERC).
Read about meeting UKRI terms and conditions for funding.
Given the flexibility in use of funding, it will be possible for CDTs to use the training grant to support more than the minimum number of students each year.
This could be achieved by having students undertake training over a variety of timeframes and by co-funding students from other sources. Students must be funded at least 50% by a NERC training grant to be classed as a NERC student.
It is strongly recommended that, wherever possible, co-funding from non-research council sources is used to part-fund NERC students (rather than wholly fund individual students) so that all CDT students have equal access to the opportunities available to research council-funded students and can be registered on Je-S (with NERC, UKRI) for reporting purposes.
In situations where it is not possible to part-fund students, the CDT must ensure suitable measures are in place to ensure those students’ training experiences are comparable to NERC students’, and all relevant data are provided to NERC outside Je-S.
Implementation and delivery
Each CDT award will provide funding for three years of new student intake. This is six years of funding in total, from the start of academic year 2024 to 2025.
Legacy and impact
CDTs are supported with the intention of developing a legacy of training excellence. Full applications must demonstrate consideration of the legacy and impacts of the CDT beyond the lifetime of NERC investment.
Data management
It is NERC policy to increase the visibility and awareness of environmental data and to improve their management as a resource.
The CDTs funded through this funding opportunity should therefore ensure that relevant NERC environmental data centres are aware of significant datasets generated, or to be compiled, under the award so that their long-term stewardship can be planned.
Read about NERC environmental data centres.
NERC facilities
Funding for NERC services and facilities cannot be requested as part of a training grant application. Students wishing to use NERC services and facilities must fund the costs of doing so using RTSG funds or gain access to facilities through other routes.
Anyone wishing to use a NERC service or facility must contact the facility to seek agreement that they can provide the service required.
Read about NERC’s facilities, ships, aircraft and stations.
Reporting requirements and monitoring
There will be mandatory annual reporting requirements for the successful CDTs, in addition to the standard studentships information captured through the Je-S studentship details functionality.
This information will be used by NERC to report on the success of our training investments to government and other partners.
Information provided will also be used to provide assurance that the CDTs are being managed appropriately and is progressing in accordance with the original funding application, the NERC training strategy, and the aims and expectations outlined in this funding opportunity.
This additional reporting will take the form of an annual return.
Indicative reporting headings include:
- information regarding student recruitment (including demographics of unsuccessful applicants)
- information regarding the CDT student population, including those funded by alternative sources to the CDT award
- CASE studentships and other collaborative partner engagement
- information regarding partners’ in-kind investment and co-funding
- cohort-level training activities
- cross-CDT and DTP training activities
- CDT-level success stories and impacts (individual student research outputs will be captured through Researchfish)
In addition to annual reports, NERC will conduct regular institutional visits to the CDTs. The CDTs will also be expected to respond to other reporting requirements when requested.
Responsible innovation
Through our funding, we want to make a positive contribution to society and the environment. We will achieve this through research outcomes and the way in which research is conducted.
If you are successful, you will need to adopt responsible research practices, as set out in UKRI’s responsible research policy and the NERC responsible business statement.
Responsible research is defined as reducing harm or enhancing benefit on the environment and society through effective management of research activities and facilities. Specifically, this covers:
- the natural environment
- the local community
- diversity and inclusion
Grant holders should consider responsible research context of their project, not the host institution as a whole. Further, grant holders should take action to enhance their responsible research approach where practical and reasonable.
