The PhD in the Arts and Humanities Subject Associations Meeting 23 September 2015

AHRC Postgraduate Funding

AHRC’s Move to Doctoral Training Partnerships AHRC has moved away (over a fair short number of years) from a well-established student-led competition approach. The first ‘Block Grant Partnership’ (BGP) awards started in Oct 2009 –These were awarded to HEIs on the basis of a competitive assessment of the HEI’s A&H broad research training provision and strategy. The “BGP2” call in 2011 specified that the minimum size of bids would be 40 studentships per year (and max. 60) –These were announced as ‘Doctoral Training Partnerships’.

Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) & Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs)  11 DTPs and 7 CDTs awarded – first students start October 2014  DTPs are mostly consortia, and each covers a broad range of the arts and humanities.  The CDTs are offer specialist training in the areas of languages, design and heritage (and these are all consortia).

Doctoral Training Partnerships & Centres for Doctoral Training Coherence of vision and strategy for A+H research training within different contexts Fostering the development of new and enriched PhD programmes. Enhancement of partnership….  within, between and across ROs;  with cultural, creative and civic partners;  and with the AHRC as funder Some examples…

Student Development Fund The training grants are calculated on the basis of an average PhD duration of 3.5 years, but with the idea that the 0.5s pooled to create a flexible pool for supplementing studentships. Studentships can be up to 4 years in duration, and DTPs have proposed a rich variety of ideas and plans for what opportunities students might take up. Most DTPs / CDTs are looking to enable a student-driven and responsive approach with at least part of the funding. Activities funded from the SDF will often extend the period of a student’s funding award beyond 3 years. Though some training costs drawn from SDF (e.g. for a short course) may not.

Cohort Development Fund Proposals could include up to 5% of the total studentships costs applied for ‘cohort development’ activities. Plenty of exciting ideas for bringing students together from across a DTP/CDT. For example, student conferences, student-led subject workshops, etc.

Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships  The scheme by which we provide allocations of studentships to major collaborative doctoral partners, or consortia.  First round awarded studentships for start in 2013, 14 and 15.  Second round has just awarded studentships to 12 organisations / consortia for 2016, 17 and 18.  Studentships will be funded at 3.5 years and we will provide Cohort Development Funding to the combined group of CDPs.  Collaborative PhDs represent a vital and distinctive form of doctoral training for AHRC.

Next Steps for DTPs Tomorrow (Thursday 23 September 2015) we are publishing draft proposals for the next DTP call in An opportunity for discussion and feedback ahead of finalising the call. The deadline for providing comments will be 30 November The DTP call will award funding from October 2019.

Thank you Over to Professor Paul Coulton (Lancaster University)