Tagged / PhD studentships

New funding available for doctoral training studentships as BU joins the ESRC South West Doctoral Training Partnership

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has announced new investment in 15 doctoral training partnerships (DTPs) spanning 89 institutions over the next five years, providing professional development and training opportunities to enhance the capabilities of doctoral candidates.

BU was part of a successful £15.3m bid which now enables colleagues to bid for prestigious ESRC-funded doctoral studentships.

We have partnered with the University of Bristol, University of Bath, Bath Spa University, University of Exeter, University of Plymouth, University of St Mark and St John (Marjon), and University of the West of England as part of the South West Doctoral Training Partnership (SWDTP).

Students sat chatting outside the Doctoral College

The partnership will cover the breadth of social sciences, as well as areas of interdisciplinary research. The ESRC awards cover five years of PhD studentships, with the first intake beginning in October 2024. The ESRC aims to support 500 students a year nationwide across the partnerships.

The DTPs will also develop tailored training programmes for students and staff and support a wide variety of collaborative activities, including events and placement opportunities. 

Professor Mike Silk, Institutional Lead for BU and a member of the SWDTP Management Board, said: “This is a prestigious award which will fund over 170 studentships across the consortium of SWDTP partners and provides us with an exciting opportunity to further elevate our postgraduate provision in both disciplinary and interdisciplinary pathways aligned with the ESRC.

“It allows BU staff and students to benefit from the leadership and research knowledge across all eight institutions and for BU to enhance and extend its research environment, promote and support excellent, innovative, diverse and interdisciplinary research, and foster transferable research skills and the career development of our postgraduate researchers.”

He added that the partnership will also bring additional benefits, with all registered postgraduate research students at BU now having access to opportunities for additional training across partner institutions, sharing best practice, resources and academic knowledge, placements, and funding for staff projects and events.

Fiona Knight, Head of The Doctoral College at BU, said: “The Doctoral College is excited to be collaborating with our partners in the SWDTP and the opportunity to share best practice, resources and academic knowledge.

“This partnership will strengthen our support for all of our social science postgraduate researchers and enable access to a network of social scientists across the DTP.”

The funding means that BU will now be able to bid for ESRC-funded doctoral studentships across several areas of excellence that align to the ESRC’s funding priorities – including Health, Wellbeing, and Society; Psychology; and Climate change, Sustainability, and Society.

Stian Westlake, ESRC Executive Chair, said: “Our vision for postgraduate training is that it will develop globally competitive social science researchers who can operate in interdisciplinary, collaborative, and challenge-led environments across a range of sectors and who have a diversity of backgrounds and experiences.

“This redesigned and expanded doctoral training opportunity will enhance the experience for PhD students and boost the UK’s capability.”

Find out more about BU studentships and opportunities through the SWDTP

Visit the South West Doctoral Training Partnership website

Recruiting a PhD Studentship

PG research

The Doctoral College receive many queries from BU academics asking how to recruit a PhD studentship. They may have been successful in a bid that included costing for a PhD student, or believe they have a strong research project which would be suitable for a PhD student to undertake. They may even have been working with an external organisation who is excited to work with us and have offered the funding for a PhD student to undertake some research.

To assist academic colleagues in navigating the next steps for a studentship, we’ve created this helpful flow chart to show you the next steps. This flow chart will ask a few questions such as if you already have funding agreed (and where it is coming from), and even provides recommendations of what to do if you don’t have the full funding confirmed.

Your first point of contact will always be the PGR Admissions team or RDS Research Facilitator, who can provide further detail and assistance for you. We can advise on the studentship schemes BU runs internally, how to submit a proposal to the fees board if your project does not have full funding, and the additional steps such as the research contract that will need completing alongside colleagues in RDS and Legal Services.

If you have any further questions about PhD studentships at BU, please email us on PGRadmissions@bournemouth.ac.uk

Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships internal expression of interest

Funding opportunities

The Leverhulme have launched their Doctoral Scholarships scheme offering UK universities funding of 15 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships in a priority research area for that institution. As a university we may submit one application only and therefore the university will be coordinating expressions of interest from Academic Staff.

Those who are interested in making an application to the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships are invited to submit the following expression of interest – Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships EOI  to Alexandra Pekalski by 11th February 2020.

Further information about the scheme is available from the Leverhulme Trust. Applicants are advised to check the eligibility criteria very carefully.

Purpose of funding

The Leverhulme will fund 15 doctoral scholarships in a priority research area for that institution. Each award funds 15 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships at that institution, with 5 scholarships to be offered in each year of the first three years of the grant.

Each scholarship is for a fixed sum of £90,000 for each student for up to 48 months of full-time doctoral study. This covers:

  • maintenance (at research council levels)
  • tuition fees

Any remaining funds are to be used for the Leverhulme Scholar’s research and training expenses.

While the scholarships may be held by students of all nationalities, the Trust has a particular interest in supporting UK or EU students.

Process for selecting applications to be submitted

Should you be interested in applying, please note that your expression of interest application will be assessed by Doctoral Funding Panel. Further details of the assessment criteria can be found within the  Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships EOI . Candidates can expect feedback by 25th February 2019.

Timetable

21-01-2020 RDS advertise Expression of Interest (EoI)competition for call
11-02-2020 EoI deadline (EoIs to be sent to RDS)
13-02-2020 Papers (applications) sent to Doctoral Funding panel (RDS to administer)
20-02-2020 Doctoral Funding panel meeting (virtual)
25-02-2020 Doctoral Funding panel decision and feedback disseminated to applicants
25-02-2020 RDS to contact Leverhulme to provide the Trust with the principal applicant’s name, departmental affiliation and email address. Access will then be granted to the Leverhulme Trust Grants Management System
March/April/May-2020 Applicants develop proposals with the support of RDS and Doctoral College
22-05-2020 Application finalised for APF financial sign-off by UET
05-06-2020 Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships Deadline

If you have further questions or queries please contact Alexandra Pekalski (apekalski@bournemouth.ac.uk) and/or Lisa Andrews (andrewsl@bournemouth.ac.uk  ). For queries relating to Doctoral colleague support please contact Fiona Knight (fknight@bournemouth.ac.uk) and/or Julia Taylor (jtaylor@bournemouthac.uk).

BU Studentships: Drop-in Support Sessions

PG research

A reminder that BU is running two drop-in support sessions this week for Academic Staff considering applying for the BU Matched Funded Studentship Competition which launched last month.

The sessions will be facilitated by a number of Academic and Professional staff who will be available to answer questions about securing matched funding, developing research degree projects or the application process.

There will be two sessions:

  • Lansdowne Campus: When: Tuesday 12 November 2019 | Time: 12:00-13:00 | Where: EB203
  • Talbot Campus: When: Thursday 14 November 2019 | Time: 12:00-13:00 | Where: F106

Please ensure you are familiar with the allocative process (see below) before you come.

The competition plays an important role in growing PGR numbers, building and strengthening of a greater number of external relationships, providing a stronger Fusion learning experience for our PGRs. For 2020, there will be up to 46 matched funded PhD studentships available over three strands:

  • PhD Studentship Strand 1 Allocative Matched Funding (up to 9 matched funded studentships)
  • PhD Studentship Strand 2 Competitive Matched Funding (up to 31 matched funded studentships)
  • PhD Studentship Strand 3 DTC Pump Priming (up to 6 matched funded studentships).

In addition, for the first time this year, BU is offering a limited number of MRes Studentship Competitive Matched Funding (up to 3 matched funded studentships).

Application Process

At this stage, academic staff are invited to submit proposals for matched funded Studentship projects which, if successful, will be advertised to recruit PhD candidates for a September 2020 start.

Full details, including the BU Studentship Allocative Process and Proposal Form, can be found on the Doctoral College Staff Intranet .

Submission Deadline:

Applications should be submitted to the Doctoral College via email to phdstudentshipcompetition@bournemouth.ac.uk no later than 5pm on Monday 13 January 2020.

If you have any questions about your application please speak with your Deputy Dean for Research and Professional Practice (DDRPP) or the Doctoral College Academic Managers: Dr Fiona Knight (for FST or FHSS enquiries) or Dr Julia Taylor (for FM or FMC enquiries).

Please ensure applications contain all relevant information (project proposal signed by Faculty DDRPP; letter of support from matched funder; due diligence form signed by Faculty DDRPP) as incomplete applications will not be considered.

2018 BU PhD Studentship Competition

Funding opportunities, PG research

We are delighted to announce the launch of the 2018 BU PhD Studentship Competition for PhD projects starting in September 2018.

There are up to 40 matched funded projects available across BU and, as far as possible, attempts will be made to allocate them equally between the four Faculties, with the quality and strategic priority of projects assessed by each Faculty and overall allocation overseen by a central panel. There are no fully funded studentships on offer this round of the competition. This excludes Studentships agreed separately, or linked to prestigious bids.

The PhD Studentship projects will only be offered in conjunction with guaranteed external matched funding. The external matched funder should provide a minimum of 50% of the PhD Studentship stipend plus the research costs, which is equivalent to minimum of £25.5k over 36 months.

The PhD Studentships will be awarded to supervisory teams on the basis of a competitive process led by Professor John Fletcher (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research & Innovation) and Faculty DDRPPs. The process will be managed by the Doctoral College.

All relevant information about the process, including application forms, PhD Studentship Terms & Conditions, information for matched funders is available on the Doctoral College intranet . It is essential that those interested in applying read all the relevant information before submitting an application.

  • Applications, and any enquiries, should be submitted to the Doctoral College via email: phdstudentshipcompetition@bournemouth.ac.uk
  • The deadline for submission of applications will be 5pm on Monday 08 January 2018
  • Please ensure applications contain all relevant information (project proposal; letter of support from matched funder; due diligence form) as incomplete applications will not be considered.

Lizzie Gauntlett at the International Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) Conference 18th & 19th May 2017

conferences, PG research, student research

Glasgow’s necropolis- the quietest voices of all?

‘Where are we now?’ was the theme of the 2017 International IPA conference this week. The short answer: at Glasgow Caledonian University. The long answer: using a qualitative methodology initially confined to healthcare research but which is now enjoying exponential growth across diverse disciplines. Talks over the two days ranged from advance care planning to museum visitor research, with one particularly innovative study by Hilda Reilly (PhD candidate, University of Glasgow). Her work uses narrative to explore the medical concept of hysteria. Reilly talked about the case of Anna von Lieben, one of Freud’s most significant patients. She demonstrated how accounts such as poetry and diaries left by the deceased can form data for analysis and interpretation.

Just a stone’s throw from Glasgow city’s own necropolis or ‘city of the dead’ (pictured), it was a fitting metaphor for one of the key aims of IPA: to make heard the quietest of voices. It let me reflect on the voices which I am working to make heard through my own PhD studentship project; those from successful, persistent students from low-income backgrounds who are under-represented throughout higher education (HE), but have great value in widening participation in HE and as part of a greater commitment to social equality.

Such novel approaches fit well with Dr Michael Larkin’s keynote exploring new developments in design and data collection in IPA research. The lecture and Q&A was particularly relevant to my own research, as it explored less common topic formulations in IPA research; namely when the phenomenon is a background phenomenon or an external theoretical construct (in my case, ‘resilience’). The recommendation to use explicitly narrative and reflective strategies rang true with my own approach to data collection.

Likewise, Professor Jonathan Smith delivered his keynote on personal experience of depression, offering rich, textured accounts of participants. He urged us as researchers to ‘dig deeper’ and ‘mine’ our participant data. In interviews, he reminded us “it is easy to talk to people; it is demanding to get high quality data”. Professor Paul Flowers closed the conference by provoking us to move from questioning ‘where are we now?’ to ‘where do we go from here?’ And, for me at least, this signifies a move towards drawing deep, ‘juicy’ interpretations from my data, to maximise the potential impact of my research.

 

Lizzie Gauntlett

Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

egauntlett@bournemouth.ac.uk

http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/i7642194

 

For more on IPA resources, news and networks of support:

www.ipa.bbk.ac.uk

 

Round 2 – 2015 BU PhD Studentship Competition – Now open for Project Proposals

The Graduate School is delighted to announce that Round 2 of the 2015 BU PhD Studentship Competition is now open for project proposals. There will be up to 15 studentships available for Matched Funded Projects only.

At this stage, Academic Staff are invited to submit proposals for studentship projects which, if successful, will be advertised to recruit PhD candidates for a January 2016 start.

Full details can be found on the Graduate School Staff Intranet

Submission Deadline:

Applications should be submitted on the Studentship Proposal form to the Graduate School – email: phdstudentshipcompetition@bournemouth.ac.uk) no later than 5pm on Monday 11 May 2015. Funding decisions will be made in line with the Studentship Policy within 3 weeks of the deadline.

General Enquiries:

Please email the Graduate School Team – graduateschool@bournemouth.ac.uk

Mike Baker Doctoral Programme is now open!

Funding opportunities

The Mike Baker Doctoral Programme is now open and has a deadline of 23 September 2013.

Funding is avaiable for the full costs of one PhD studentship (or 50% of the costs of two PhD studentships) to develop research and an evidence-base in higher education practice and policy, with an impact across the sector. The proposed project should be discipline-specific learning and teaching research or interdisciplinary/generic pedagogical research and should have a clear benefit to either practice or to policy on practice. Details of HEA disciplines can be found from the discipline based web pages. The supervisor should have a successful track record in the relevant area demonstrated through publications and broader dissemination efforts. Find out more about the call and how to apply on the HEA call webpage.