Nottingham Trent University to support early career researchers through €6.5m initiative

Nottingham Trent University is to provide more opportunities for early career researchers as part of the University Alliance’s Doctoral Training Alliance (DTA).

One of the new projects will explore social media use and addiction

It follows a €6.5m award to the University Alliance from the European Union and is aimed at doctoral students from across the EU and beyond.

The money will help to fund projects at 15 universities and will integrate the DTA’s three disciplinary areas, applied biosciences for health, energy and social policy.

Six new projects will be funded at Nottingham Trent University and will explore areas including preventing infections in an ageing population, hypoxia in neurodegenerative diseases and an investigation into social media use and addiction.

Professor Carl Brown, Head of Nottingham Trent University’s Doctoral School, said: “The university is excited to be part of this innovative programme. We look forward supporting and developing the PhD fellows that we recruit across all three key disciplinary areas.

“Our involvement in this initiative underlines NTU’s commitment to enabling discovery, driving innovation and changing the world through our research.”The DTA, which is the UK’s largest doctoral training programme of its kind, was launched in 2015 to create a new model closely aligned to industrial strategy and priority challenges, producing industry-ready graduates.

University Alliance Chair, Professor John Latham, said: “This major external funding award is a prestigious a stamp of approval for University Alliance’s Doctoral Training Alliance (DTA) model and demonstrates its distinctiveness and strengths.

“The DTA programme responds to the needs of industry and the challenges facing society, training independent, highly-employable researchers with relevant skills and expertise to thrive in strategically important sectors. The success of our proposal reflects that.

“As the DTA – the UK’s largest multi-institution partnership of its kind – goes from strength to strength, it is fantastic that this funding will enable the programme to attract talent from overseas and operate internationally. The opportunities being created will add to UK research and innovation ecosystem and help us stay competitive.”

Two of the current national Doctoral Training Alliance Directors at NTU, Professor Yvonne Barnett Senior Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Professor Amin Al-Habaibeh were academic leads on this successful application.

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The University Alliance’s project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sktodowska-Curie grant agreement No 801604.

More information on UA’s Doctoral Training Alliance programme is available here: https://unialliance.ac.uk/dta/ and full details of the COFUND aspect available here: https://unialliance.ac.uk/dta/cofund/

List of participating institutions: Coventry University, Liverpool John Moores University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Nottingham Trent University, Sheffield Hallam University, Teesside University, The Open University, University of Brighton, University of Central Lancashire, University of Greenwich, University of Hertfordshire, University of Huddersfield, University of Portsmouth, University of South Wales, Ulster University (non-Alliance)

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Nottingham Trent University (NTU) was named University of the Year 2017 at the Times Higher Education Awards, and Modern University of the Year in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018. These awards recognise NTU for its high levels of student satisfaction, its quality of teaching, its engagement with employers, and its overall student experience.

NTU has been rated Gold in the Government’s Teaching Excellence Framework – the highest ranking available. NTU is one of the largest UK universities. With 30,000 students and more than 4,000 staff located across four campuses, the University contributes £900m to the UK economy every year. It is one of the UK’s most environmentally friendly universities, containing some of the sector’s most inspiring and efficient award-winning buildings. 96% of its graduates go on to employment or further education within six months of leaving. Our student satisfaction is high: NTU achieved an 88% satisfaction score in the 2018 National Student Satisfaction Survey.

The University is passionate about creating opportunities and its extensive outreach programme is designed to enable Nottingham Trent to be a vehicle for social mobility. NTU is among the UK’s top five recruiters of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. NTU is home to world-class research, and won The Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2015 – the highest national honour for a UK university. It recognised the University’s pioneering projects to improve weapons and explosives detection in luggage; enable safer production of powdered infant formula; and combat food fraud.

With an international student population of over 3,000 from around 100 countries, the University prides itself on its global outlook.