Midlands Graduate School Doctoral Training Partnership

 
Doctoral Training Partnerships offer high-quality and coherent postgraduate training covering the full range of the social sciences and areas of interdisciplinary research. The Midlands Graduate School DTP awards around 65 highly prestigious ESRC-funded doctoral scholarships to successful applicants annually.
 

First established in 2016 and re-accredited in 2023, the Midlands Graduate School (MGS) DTP is led by Warwick University and includes De Montfort University alongside Aston, Birmingham, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham and Nottingham Trent Universities.

Being part of a DTP means being belonging to a large cohort of MGS funded PhD researchers across the consortium, with opportunities to attend events and meet fellow scholars at any of the eight participating universities. 

United Kingdom Research and Innovation

ESRC is one of a number of UKRI research councils, each with a different range of research priorities. ESRC is committed to developing globally competitive social science researchers who are able to operate in interdisciplinary, collaborative and challenge-led environments across a range of sectors, and who are drawn from diverse backgrounds and experiences. The ESRC achieves this by enabling Doctoral Training Partnerships to allocate funding for doctoral study.

DMU, for example, have a number of significant research strengths in the social sciences, with all of MGS PGRs aligned to a pathway such as Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology and Cross-disciplinary Methodologies and Advanced Data Analysis.

Other development opportunities include:

  • 3 month placement to develop and broaden transferable skills by undertaking work unconnected with the PhD project as part of “Research in Practice”

  • Participation, along with the full cohort of MGS funded students, in events organised by the MGS or ESRC such as the annual conference and residential event.

Funding and support

MGS scholarships provide funding to cover costs of fees, as well as an annual tax-free stipend, paid on a monthly basis to cover living expenses. As well as this, all PGRs receive a research training support grant to cover expenses associated with the research project. Scholars also have access to a grant for overseas fieldwork, and for overseas institutional visits.

How to apply

  • Funded MGS opportunities are advertised annually in late summer/early autumn here funded opportunities 

  • If you have any questions at all please contact Sally Ruane sruane@dmu.ac.uk

 
Published on 13 November 2025

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