Information the ORIGINAL SW-RDA Scheme studentships

Value
Timetable
Rules and Evaluation Process
The Review Process

Guidelines for academics on how to propose a studentship project
Identify a project that you can work collaboratively on with at least one other HEI and an industry partner. Complete the web-form before the deadline (you can use the link on the right). This will be submitted to the relevant Theme Panel for approval.

Great Western Research aims to provide 130 Postgraduate Research Studentships in the collaborative themes– offered under joint supervision between HEIs in order to gain access to the latest research interfaces. Studentships will be designed to meet business needs and will be jointly funded by industry and SWRDA. Studentships can be held in any SW HEI provided they are compliant with the current QAA Code for Postgraduate Research Supervision.

Value
A Studentship has a notional value of £55.2k, ie £18.4k pa for 3 years (this includes an admin fee of £1,660 pa payable to GWR). The host HEI will be expected to cover costs incurred above this figure and all costs of accommodation and other overheads. External funding partners may top up the studentship to a higher figure to cover these costs. GWR will contribute up to 50%, ie £27.6k or £9.2k pa. The admin fee will be deducted from this amount before it is awarded to the host HEI. The other 50% must be contributed by external partners or the partner HEIs. The actual amount received by the host HEI will be £50,220 or £16,740 pa (£27.6k from their external partners and £22,620 from GWR).

Rules and Evaluation Process

If a project does not meet these basic criteria it will be rejected.

HE Partners
1       All studentships must be offered as a collaboration, with joint supervision by at least two HEIs in the South West. The proposal must include a description of how the joint supervision will work.
2       The department hosting the PhD student ( The lead institution) must comply with QAA quality standards for supervising   postgraduate students.
3       The lead institution will receive the fee for the student and the grant from GWR.
4       Cross-theme studentships are also welcomed, although a lead theme and supervisor must be identified. It is expected the lead theme will relate to the host department.

Students
5      Part Time Students are eligible as long as the project is completed within the overall GWR 5 year time frame, ie by July 2010. The maximum contribution from GWR will remain the same (£27.6k) whatever the extended duration (See 2.10 below).
6     International Students are eligible to apply although Great Western Research’s contribution is fixed and so HEIs will need to cover any additional fees from other sources.

External Funding Partners
7      All studentships must include an external non-HEI funding partner. The external funding partner must be based in the SW-RDA region or have substantial business interests in the South West. This would include, for example, an organisation which is not based in the region but which has a large establishment in the region (for example, Hewlett-Packard or British Aerospace or the BBC). The South West Region consists of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, as well as Swindon, Bristol, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset, Bournemouth, Poole, Torbay and Plymouth.

8      There is a strong preference for external funding partners to be commercial organisations, but Public Sector Research Establishments, such as the Met Office, NHS Trusts, and DEFRA Research Institutes are eligible. However, there is a limit to the total number of studentships that can be awarded to such public-sector partners in the GWR programme. Please contact GWR to ensure this limit has not been exceeded.

9      Any individual External Funding partner will not normally be able to undertake more than 6 GWR studentships without special agreement from the Regional Research Board.

10    In order to facilitate the involvement of SMEs in the scheme GWR has agreed with SWRDA to allow proposals in which an SME is the lead partner in research/intellectual terms whilst not contributing the majority of the funding. In such “mentoring” proposals the SME must provide at least 20% of the overall funding. The proposal must be able to demonstrate clear benefits for the SME, and the application should describe clearly how the SME lead partner will exploit the results of the research. As with non-mentoring proposals the IP rights will reside with the lead partner, in this case the SME. An additional funding partner(s) will be required to contribute 30% of the funding, with GWR contributing the remaining 50%. Provision of the 30% funding for mentoring proposals by the mentor organisation will NOT count to either the cap of 6 proposals per organisation or the overall cap on non-business partners’ totals. Thus for example a proposal with an SME as a lead partner contributing 20% of the funding and Airbus acting as a mentor organisation contributing 30% of the funding would be eligible under this mentoring scheme , and the IP rights would rest with the SME lead partner.

Partner Contributions
11      Normally, the external funding partner(s) will be expected to provide 50% of the cost of each studentship. Proposals with less than 50% external funding for studentships can be considered, but the proposal must indicate where the remaining funding will come from. See note 14 below.

12      The full cost of some PhD programmes may be higher than the notional value because of the costs of materials, travel and other research project costs. Therefore, the HEI, the external partner, or another source (not including the SWRDA) either singly or in combination, may top up the studentship to a higher figure.

13      It is possible to have more than one external funding partner in a project, and the partners do not need to contribute equal amounts of funding. Thus, for example, a large organisation might contribute most of the external funding, allowing a smaller company to begin collaboration with an HEI without having to make a large initial financial commitment. See note 10 above, for example.

14      You may wish to use University funds or funds from other organisations such as research councils, charities or HEFCE to contribute towards the cost of the studentship thereby either reducing the external partner contribution or creating a top-up. These supplementary contributions must not exceed 25% of the total project cost. Please note that you may not use SWRDA funds in this way.

Charities or Not-for-profit Organisations and Representative Bodies
15      In general, a charity will not be eligible to count as the lead “external funding partner” in GWR, unless the charity is based in the South West and the research will contribute directly to the development of the South West region. Additionally, there is a limit to the total number of studentships that can be awarded to such public-sector partners in the GWR programme. Please contact GWR to ensure this limit has not been exceeded. Thus, for example, a charity working in the area of sustainable development in the South West could act as an external partner for a research project into sustainable housing, but funding from general charities supporting research such as, for example, The Leverhulme or Wellcome Trusts, would not be eligible. However, although having a charity partner does not remove the requirement to have another external funding partner, the charity can contribute towards the funding for a studentship, thus reducing the amount that the other external partners have to pay.

Link to SW Economic Development Priorities
16      All studentships must be able to demonstrate an economic benefit to the SW region and be aligned with the SWRDA’s economic, and other strategic priorities. This must be described on the application form. Types of benefit may include:

a) Additional R&D expenditure in the region
b) Helping an organisation to develop a new technology or process
c) Improving systems or techniques within the SW region
d) Enhancing information about the SW region

Please visit the SWRDA website for more information: www.southwestrda.gov.uk. These pages may also help:
http://www.southwestrda.org.uk/what-we-do/policy/economic-strategy.shtm
http://www.southwestrda.org.uk/about/job-vacancies/our-work.shtm

Evaluation Criteria for Studentships
The following criteria will be used to rank GWR proposals for Fellowships and Studentships:

• Quality of Research
• Degree of Collaboration
  Each proposal must clearly demonstrate that it will instigate an active cross-institutional research project, and that the collaboration has the potential to continue after the funding has ended, leading to new research project applications to research councils and other funders and to new high quality publications.

• Contribution to business and business benefit.
• Short-term and long-term impact on the South-West (economic, social, intellectual)
• Preference will be given to studentships involving businesses, especially SMEs that have not previously worked with the university or research group named in the proposal.

The Review Process
The review process is as follows:

1      Call for proposals will be issued.

2      The GWR Director checks that the proposals recieved are eligible for GWR funding.

3      The Theme Panel and Director send the ranked lists of studentship proposals to the Regional Research Board, together with a short written commentary on the lists.

4      The Regional Research Board decides what proportion of the total GWR resources go to each theme and each call by choosing how many proposals to approve from each theme list. The research board is advised, but not required, to adhere to the rankings from the Theme Panels. Theme Panel members and Regional Research Board members are not required to leave the meeting when applications from themselves or their institutions are being discussed

5      The Regional Research Board makes firm decisions on studentship proposals from the ranked lists from the Theme Panels. The Director informs applicants of the decision, and provides feedback on unsuccessful proposals with the support of the Theme Panel chair as appropriate.

6      Proposals may not be changed between the Theme Panel ranking meeting and the Regional Research Board meeting. However we expect that a successful proposal may be modified somewhat before the project commences, for example in order to respond to suggestions from the theme panel, or to accommodate conditions that arise during the legal negotiations with the external partners.

Appeals and Complaints

Decisions made by the Regional Research Board are final and applicants will not be able to appeal against the decision, however they will be able to re-submit the application in the next Call for Proposals, having taking into consideration the feedback provided by the Executive Director.   Applicants should talk to the relevant Theme Panel Chair with any problems, and can make formal complaints if they feel it is necessary to the Executive Director, or the Strategy and Management Board.