New funding boost for future bioscience and environmental science PhDs

Royal Holloway has been given an amazing boost for bioscience and environmental science PhD students through Doctoral Landscape Awards (DLA).

The funding is provided by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which has announced a £500 million investment in several consortia of universities to provide broad, flexible funding to support talented doctoral students.

Royal Holloway is a member of three funded consortia which secured funding for Doctoral Landscape Awards schemes for at least the next five years:

• The London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Consortium(LIDo) has been funded for five more years to equip the next generation of bioscientists for a digital future. LIDo students tackle important, complex problems in bioscience and biotechnology by integrating experimental techniques with advanced computational methods including artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science and modelling. The investment will offer at least 35 full studentships per year across the DLA.

• The Advanced Research and Innovation in Environmental Sciences (ARIES) Doctoral Training Partnership will see 23 full studentships per year across the DLA and aims to equip PhDs with the interdisciplinary and global nature of environmental sciences, to innovate and deliver solutions. All with the communication and data skills needed to cope with a rapidly changing world.

• Training Research and Equity in Environmental Sciences(TREES) Doctoral Landscape Award has 27 environmental science PhD students per year across the DLA. It is a comprehensive, multi-institutional programme dedicated to training the next generation of environmental scientists. It will focus on fostering interdisciplinary approaches, field training, strategic partnerships, and embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), as well as sustainability throughout every aspect of the programme.

Professor Vincent Jansen, from the Department of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway, said of the funding for LIDo: "This investment will allow us to train talented researchers to pursue discovery and innovation at the universities combined in the London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Consortium and opens new and exciting avenues for interdisciplinary and collaborative research."

Professor Alexander Dickson, from the Department of Earth Sciences, added: "The ARIES Doctoral Landscape Award is a consortium of universities and non-academic partners that are poised to provide solutions to some of the most pressing environmental issues facing our planet.

"Royal Holloway's central role in the consortium offers opportunities for a new generation of postgraduate students to access superb researcher training events and for our staff to work with a world-class network of collaborators spanning disciplines from climate change to environmental genomics and clean energy."

Professor Simon Blockley, from the Department of Geography, said: "I am excited by this brilliant opportunity for prospective students to join a cohort of researchers across 11 institutions.

"TREES will train the next generation of scientists to find solutions to some of the most pressing issues we face across the world."