A very Happy New Year to all students and staff in the NWSSDTP!

2018 was a busy year for the North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership. Since our DTP officially launched in October 2017, with our first cohort commencing their studies, we have been working hard on developing and delivering funding and training opportunities across the North West.

In April, we completed our second round of studentship recruitment, awarding a total of 67 studentships across the consortium for programmes commencing in October 2018. 23 of these awards were for CASE studentships – doctoral projects that will be co-supervised by a non-HEI collaborative partner.

In May, we held the first ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship competition. The competition was fierce, with a wide range of exciting projects from across the social sciences submitted. 54 applications were received in total, from all four institutions of the consortium. Seven fellowships were ultimately awarded to candidates in Business and Management, Criminology, Development and Humanitarianism, Health and Wellbeing, Linguistics, Social Anthropology and Sociology. The fellows commenced their projects in October 2018.

In September, we received the excellent news that Dr Michael Mair (University of Liverpool) was successful in the national ESRC Artificial Intelligence Studentship Competition, part of the UK Industrial Strategy. The studentship, entitled ‘AI at Work: A Hybrid Study of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Research in Practice’, will commence in October 2019.

In November, we held our second annual Induction Residential for new DTP students at the Lakeside Hotel on Lake Windermere. Talks were given on the expectations and opportunities associated with our studentships, how to approach negotiating the postgraduate journey, and the wider value of the social sciences. Workshops were offered on ‘Developing Resourcefulness and Resilience’ and ‘Social Media for PGRs’. Most importantly, NWSSDTP students from across the four constituent institutions had the opportunity to come together to discuss their research and start building networks.

We are now looking forward to what will is likely to be an even busier, and hopefully just as successful, 2019!

-Hayley Meloy, NWSSDTP Manager