The majority of GEE students are funded by Doctoral Training Programmes (DTPs) or Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs). These are studentship schemes formed between UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) research councils, and consortia of universities and other research institutions. They provide students with four years of funding, including fees (but usually only at the UK student, not the international student, rate), research expenses, a stipend for living expenses, and often additional funds to attend conferences and training courses.
Unlike other funding sources, students apply directly to the DTP or CDT they are interested in, and do not need to contact potential supervisors in GEE until they are admitted. However prospective students who are particularly interested in the research of a particular supervisor should make contact to ensure that the supervisor is participating in the DTP or CDT they are considering.
Training, Research & Equity in Environmental Sciences Doctoral Landscape Award (TREES DLA) will be a major route for doctoral funding for GEE students. It is a newly formed partnership of 10 prestigious research organisations across London and the South East of England, funded by the UKRI Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). TREES combines cutting-edge research training with a strong focus on equity, diversity and sustainability. The DLA will empower students to tackle global environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem resilience.
The London Interdisciplinary Biosciences Consortium is the largest UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funded DTP in the UK. It provides GEE students with a unique opportunity to pursue innovative interdisciplinary research projects.
The UCL-Birkbeck MRC DTP is funded by the UKRI Medical Research Council. It provides state-of-the-art PhD programmes that exploit the unique research strengths and training infrastructure of UCL and Birkbeck. There are four themes:
Fundamental mechanisms of disease, Experimental and personalised medicine, Neuroscience and mental health, and Populations, people and data across the life course.
AI-INTERVENE is a NERC-funded doctoral training programme aimed at equipping the next generation of environmental scientists with AI and data science tools to unlock the full potential of biodiversity data, creating data-driven insight to inform and enact change. This programme is run in partnership with the University of Reading, along with core partners: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, RBG Kew, the Institute of Zoology, and the Natural History Museum.
The UK Food Systems CDT is a UKRI funded programme providing unique opportunities for PhD projects in transformative and interdisciplinary food systems research.
More general information and a full list of DTPs and CDTs in which UCL participates.