UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) have announced a boost to doctoral training at the University of Nottingham by awarding £25m for future cohorts.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is allocating £14m to support PhD training in biological sciences for five intakes of students from 2025 from the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University. This will be the fourth successful grant to support the programme, and the second time the two universities have delivered the programme together.
The Nottingham Doctoral Landscape Awards Partnership (DLA) will focus on three themes: Sustainable Agriculture and Food, Bioscience for Human Health and Biotechnology for Sustainable Growth.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is meanwhile providing a further £11m worth of funding for the University of Nottingham to train three cohorts of doctoral students.
This next generation of innovators will enhance the UK's capabilities in key strategic areas that align with our own strengths, such the translation of zero carbon technologies.
The DLA will take in multi-disciplinary research across the faculties of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and Health Sciences, including quantum sensing, advanced manufacturing, hydrogen energy, power electronics, AI, healthcare devices, battery technology, and engineering biology.
The schemes provided by UKRI build on a rich history of doctoral investments which support discovery-driven research at universities across the UK.
Professor Phil Williams, APVC for Research and Knowledge Exchange from the Faculty of Science, said: "Following the excellent news of UKRI-BBSRC supporting our Doctoral Landscape Award, I am delighted that the UKRI have announced their support of our DLA from the EPSRC.
The £11M award will provide funding to train the next generation of researchers and innovators, in three cohorts from 2025-27 to 2027-28, to enhance the UK national capability in engineering and physical science.
"The DLA will build upon our Signature Strengths in the EPSRC remit, including our developing area around Strategic Technologies and the Zero Carbon Cluster. Many of these areas comprise of multi-disciplinary research activities across the faculties of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and Health Sciences.
"Key subject areas include quantum sensing, advanced manufacturing, hydrogen energy, power electronics, AI, healthcare devices, battery technology, and engineering biology.
"The DLA award enables flexibility in funding, which we will utilize to support: equality, diversity, accessibility, and inclusion in the student and supervisor population; developing and enhancing our training provision; and routes into and out of PhD research, which will include Vacation Internships targeted at groups underrepresented in our cohorts, and enhance our existing Postdoctoral Fellowship programme."
