York wins share of £6 million investment in bioscience

Posted on 25 January 2012

A successful collaboration between the White Rose universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York has attracted £6 million to create a joint Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) in mechanistic biology.

The White Rose University Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership in Mechanistic Biology will support world-class molecular bioscience, as well as strategic research in the areas of food security, bioenergy and industrial biotechnology.

We are very pleased at York's success in this competition for postgraduate funding that will allow us to build on existing training programmes and enhance research collaborations with our partner institutions in Yorkshire 

Professor Deborah Smith 

Announced today (January 24), the investment from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) will fund a total of 60 studentships, with each studentship receiving around £100,000 over four years. The program will run for three years, with the first intake of students starting in October 2012.

In recognition of the importance of biosciences research and student education, the White Rose University Consortium will also fund three additional PhD studentships a year, and individual universities will also provide one further studentship a year from their own budgets. The combined additional support to this program from the universities will be 18 studentships – bringing the total to 78 new studentships.

Academic leadership is joint across all three institutions, with the University of Leeds taking the administrative lead. Students can apply to any of the White Rose universities to take part in the program.

The White Rose University Consortium is one of 14 DTPs at 44 research organisations across the UK awarded a share of £67 million by the BBSRC following a competitive bidding process.

The White Rose programme will be partnered by DEFRA research organisation the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera), and the Research Complex at Harwell.

Professor Deborah Smith, Head of Biology at the University of York, said: “We are very pleased at York's success in this competition for postgraduate funding that will allow us to build on existing training programmes and enhance research collaborations with our partner institutions in Yorkshire.”

The complete story is available at the University news section.