GUIDANCE NOTES for completing the
Great Western Research studentship
project application form
Stars (*) denote compulsory fields. Applications will not be accepted if submitted with
any of these fields left blank.
Applicants should refer to the Call for Proposals, Studentship Rules and Evaluation
Procedure and Theme Descriptions before making their application. These
documents are available on the Great Western Research website at
www.greatwesternresearch.ac.uk
* Contact name, telephone and email:
Enter details of the main contact person for this application.
* Theme:
Select the appropriate theme. This will determine who the application is sent to.
If the project is relevant to two themes, the applicant must select the most
appropriate lead theme here and then describe the relationship in the links field (see
below). It is acceptable for applicants working in different theme areas to jointly
supervise the studentship and this should be detailed in the supervision section.
PARTNERS
* Host HEI:
Select the institution where the student will be based.
* QAA Compliance:
Host institutions must comply with QAA quality standards for supervising
postgraduate students. Applications will be rejected if ‘no’ has been ticked.
* 2nd HEI:
All studentships must be offered as a collaboration, with joint supervision by at least
two HEIs in the South West. Select the second partner HEI from the list.
Other HEI:
Studentships can involve more than two HEIs. Use this field to select a third partner.
If you have more than three partner HEIs, please contact the relevant Theme Panel
Secretary to provide the additional details. Contact details are available on each
Theme page at www.greatwesternresearch.ac.uk
* Industry Partner and Address:
All studentships must include an external non-HEI funding partner. See Eligibility
Criteria for details of eligible organisations. Enter their full name and address
including post code.
Nature of Business:
Enter a brief description, for example: manufacturer of widgets, or construction
industry.
Charity and public sector organisations have different criteria to private industries.
Please see the Eligibility Criteria.
SMEs (small to medium enterprises incorporating micro enterprises) are classed as
organisations with less than 250 employees and which have an annual turnover not
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exceeding 50 million euro, and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding 43
million euro. Preference is given to projects involving SMEs.
Other External Partner:
Studentships can involve more than one external partner. Add details of a second
organisation here. If there are more than two external partners, please contact the
relevant Theme Panel Secretary direct to explain this.
PROJECT
* Title:
Enter the full title of the studentship project.
* Outline Project Description:
Enter a brief description of the project’s scope and objectives. Applicants should aim
to limit this to no more than 500 words.
Start Date:
The date you envisage the studentship will start.
Duration:
The planned duration in years of the studentship. Please note that GWR will normally
fund studentships for 3 years, unless undertaken on a part-time basis.
* Fit with theme description:
Details of why the proposed studentship project fits within the Theme. Please refer to
the Theme Descriptions.
Project Links:
Details of links with any other Great Western Research applications (both historical
and current, approved or rejected) and with other themes.
SUPERVISION
* Lead HEI Supervisor and business experience:
Enter the name of the lead academic supervisor for the studentship and tick one of
the three boxes to indicate their experience of working with business.
Relevant Academic Experience:
Enter details of the supervisor’s academic background in this theme area. This can
be copied and pasted from a CV or other document where appropriate.
* 2nd Supervisor and business experience:
Enter the name of the academic who will be supervising the studentship at the
second HEI, and their experience of working with business.
Relevant Academic Experience:
Enter details of the 2nd supervisor’s academic background in this theme area. This
can be copied and pasted from a CV or other document where appropriate.
Other HEI Supervisor and business experience:
If three HEIs are involved, enter the name of the academic who will be supervising
the studentship at the third HEI, and their experience of working with business. This
information is required for each supervisor at each HEI, so if there are more than
three please provide this information to the relevant Theme Panel Secretary.
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Relevant Academic Experience:
Enter details of the 3rd supervisor’s academic background in this theme area. This
can be copied and pasted from a CV or other document where appropriate.
* Arrangements for Supervision:
The proposal must include a description of how the joint supervision will work. This
may include details of how the external partner will be involved in supervision, and
may detail cross-Theme supervision.
* SW ECONOMIC BENEFITS
Applications for studentships must be aligned with the SWRDA’s economic, and
other strategic priorities. All studentships must be able to demonstrate an economic
benefit to the SW region. Please see Eligibility Criteria and the SWRDA website
(www.southwestrda.org.uk) for more details. These pages may help:
http://www.southwestrda.org.uk/what-we-do/policy/economic-strategy.shtm
http://www.southwestrda.org.uk/about/job-vacancies/our-work.shtm
Select at least one of the options and give full details.
* BENEFITS
Answer each question in full. Preference is given to applications involving companies
who have not worked with you or your research group previously or with the HE
sector, and where there is potential for future collaborative research.
TOTAL VALUE
* Total Value of Studentship:
Studentships have a notional value of £55.2k i.e. £18.4k pa (including an
admin fee). The maximum contribution from GWR will be £9.2K per annum ie
£27.6K in total. However, 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.
Enter the total value of the studentship here.
* Total Contribution from External Partner(s):
The external funding partners will normally be expected to provide the residual cost
of the studentship once the GWR contribution has been made (ie all costs above
£27.6K). Partners may set a maximum of £9.2K pa contribution or may be willing to
make a further top-up to cover specified additional costs eg for materials, travel etc.
Enter the total contribution from all the external partners here.
If this contribution is less than 50% of the total value of the studentship, explain why
in the box below.
[Cont’d]
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Supplementary Contribution:
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. If you wish to do this, please describe your intentions here. These
supplementary contributions should not exceed 25% of the total project cost. Please
note that you may not use SWRDA funds in this way..
* Total Required from Great Western Research
The contribution from GWR will normally be capped at £27.6K. If you require more
than this, please contact the relevant Theme Panel Secretary to explain.
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