Professor Paul Harrison, our Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, is also the National Director of the Doctoral Training Alliance.
A year ago, academics from across University Alliance member institutions assembled in London to embark on an exciting new journey together. The Doctoral Training Alliance (DTA) – the largest doctoral training partnership in the country – aimed to produce independent, highly-employable researchers to meet the demands of modern industry and other employers.
The first DTA programme is in Applied Biosciences for Health, to ensure that our world-leading research base continues to lead in the fast-moving global healthcare sector. The cohort will grow to 60 students and more than 100 supervisors this year. Building on this success, the DTA’s second programme – DTA Energy – has now launched, which will connect students and staff from 12 Alliance universities.
DTA Energy will focus on producing doctoral graduates equipped with the skills and experience to tackle the global challenge of ensuring future security and sustainability of energy supplies and the management of energy demand.
Key to the DTA’s success is the focus on industry relevance and collaboration. This has resulted in a major new partnership for DTA Energy with the Knowledge Transfer Network(KTN), the UK’s innovation network, providing DTA PhD students with the opportunity to undertake a three-month industry placement in a Small- or Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). Whilst students gain valuable skills and experience, small businesses benefit from research expertise.
International researchers and PhD students from the Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN) will also join the DTA Energy Summer School in 2017 to catalyse further cross-border collaborations to meet global energy challenges.
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