A successful collaboration between the White Rose universities of Leeds, York and Sheffield has received a £19m Doctoral Training Partnership award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
The funding will create the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities, which together with a further contribution of £4m from the Universities, will see more than 300 fully-funded doctoral students recruited and trained over five years.
Working across the two arts faculties at Leeds - Arts and Performance, Visual Arts and Communications - the first cohort will start in autumn 2014.
Professor Paul Cooke, Pro-Dean for Research and Innovation for Faculty of Arts at the University of Leeds, said: “This major success endorses our new model of collaborative doctoral training and provides a platform for long term closer partnership between the three universities in the arts and humanities.
“The aspiration is that relationships strengthened through the College will stimulate further research, training and knowledge exchange opportunities.”
Dr Julian White, Chief Executive of the White Rose University Consortium, said: "This prestigious award from the AHRC is recognition of the world-class strengths in the arts and humanities across the three universities. The strategic importance of this initiative is demonstrated by an additional investment of £4m from the universities to enhance the College’s reach, impact and operation.
“The College builds on the long-term strategic partnership between the three universities - the White Rose University Consortium - which has generated in excess of £130m of funding for collaborative projects across research, training and knowledge exchange.”
The award is one of 11 new Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) and seven Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) announced by the AHRC.
The new DTP and CDT awards are designed to create greater flexibility for Higher Education Institutions and to create rich training environments both within and across disciplines. This will include allocation of resources for placement opportunities and additional skills training.
Science and Universities Minister David Willetts said: "The AHRC is creating more opportunities for the next generation of researchers, both within and beyond academia in the thriving arts and humanities sector. I'm particularly pleased to see an emphasis on student placements and additional skills training among the new arrangements.”
The AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership for the new White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities will be coordinated by the University of York, with Professor Julian Richards as the founding Director.
Professor Richards said: “The White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities will provide the environment, support and opportunities to enable the brightest doctoral students to flourish and will equip them for their future careers. Students will benefit from an enhanced training programme, as well as funded opportunities to spend time with external organisations, in the UK or internationally, thus gaining the skills and experience valued by potential employers.”
View the doctoral studentship funding and application process
Further information
Please contact Rachel Barson, Press Officer, University of Leeds, on +44 (0)113 343 32060 or email r.barson@leeds.ac.uk
The White Rose University Consortium
A strategic partnership between three of the UK’s leading research universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, the White Rose has generated more than £130m of additional funding into the Universities since it was formed in 1997, enabling the delivery of a range of initiatives including collaborative research, commercial exploitation, joint postgraduate scholarships and industrial partnerships. For more information on the White Rose University Consortium www.whiterose.ac.uk