Industrial CASE Studentships

Call opens: 7 May 2013
Proposal deadline: 31 July 2013, 4pm

Our vision is to provide PhD students with a first-rate, challenging research training experience within the context of a mutually beneficial research collaboration, between academic and partner organisations.

This call is one of two main ways in which we fund collaborative training. See our CASE studentships page for more information.

Important: applicants should ensure proposals are submitted to their institution's submitter/approval pool a minimum of 5 working days in advance of the published deadline. This enables institution checks to be carried out before final submissions.

Number of awards and remuneration

Funding for 90 4-year studentships is available.

The studentship stipend rates for studentships commencing 2013/14 can be found on RCUK's website (see external links).

Changes

As part of our ongoing commitment to high quality research training, BBSRC recently evaluated its industrial CASE programmes; the full evaluation will be published in due course. Recommendations for immediate changes that affect this call can be found in the Evaluation Key Conclusions (see downloads) and accompanying CASE Evaluation press release (see related links).

Eligibility

Applications must include both an academic and non-academic (typically industry) supervisor from eligible organisations. Eligible non-academic partners typically come from the bioscience industry sector, however they may include charities and levy bodies. Any organisation that is eligible for funding from any research council is not eligible to be a non-academic partner.

Please see Information Pack for further details. Before preparing and submitting a proposal it is imperative that you ensure that both partners are eligible.

Collaborative training

Studentships are principally based at the academic partner, with a mandatory placement at the non-academic partner for a minimum of 3 months and up to 18 months.

Financial contributions to be made by the company

Placement expenses (for e.g. travel and accommodation) incurred by the student must be met by the non-academic partner.

In line with recommendations from our recent CASE Evaluation, it is no longer mandatory for small companies (of 50 employees or less) to make a financial contribution to the academic institution or to enhance the student stipend. For companies with more than 50 employees, some financial contributions are still required.

For further information see the Information Pack (see below) and Frequently Asked Questions (see below).

How to apply

Proposals should be made through the Joint electronic Submission (Je-S) system. Please note that the proposal must be submitted by the academic partner on behalf of the collaborative partnership.

Applicants should refer to the detailed Je-S help text for each section of the proposal form, available in the Information Pack. The Information Pack also details document attachments required to support your application.

Please ensure that proposed projects are within our remit to avoid the proposal being rejected. Queries regarding remit should be sent to remit@bbsrc.ac.uk.

Application downloads

Queries

For queries about industrial company eligibility please contact postgrad.studentships@bbsrc.ac.uk.

Applicants should include our response to their query within a covering letter when submitting a proposal to prevent further lengthy iteration following submission.

For financial queries regarding existing CASE awards, please contact RCUK SSC Grants Administration.

For queries using Je-S, the helpdesk can be contacted Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm UK time (excluding bank holidays and other holidays):

E-mail: JeSHelp@rcuk.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1793 444164 [out of hours please leave a voicemail message]

Please provide:

Your name, organisation and user ID
Date and time
Which part of the form or system you were working on
The nature of the problem

Contact

Innovation and Skills Group - Studentships
postgrad.studentships@bbsrc.ac.uk

RCUK SSC Grants Administration
grantspostaward@ssc.rcuk.ac.uk