Doctoral focal award: chip design and verification

Full Job Description

Opportunity status: Upcoming

Funders:

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

Funding type: Grant

Total fund: £6,000,000

Maximum award: £6,000,000

Publication date: 28 September 2026

Opening date:

7 October 2026 9:00am UK time

Closing date:

2 December 2026 4:00pm UK time

Apply for funding to establish a doctoral focal award in chip design and verification. This supports interdisciplinary training in very large-scale integration design and systems-on-chip.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for EPSRC funding.

Funding will initially be available to support for two cohorts of students. Funding for further cohorts may be available in future.

As a non-full economic cost award, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will fund 100% of eligible costs listed in the opportunity. Estates and indirect costs will not be funded.

Who Is Eligible To Apply

This funding opportunity is open to organisations with standard eligibility. Check if your organisation is eligible.

Organisations eligible to apply include:

• higher education institutions

• research council institutes

• eligible independent research organisations and Catapult centres

• public sector research establishments (PSREs)

Check if you’re eligible for funding.

PSREs wishing to be involved in an application are required to choose whether they wish to do so either as a project lead or project co-lead, where they will provide the principal base (host) for students, or as a project partner. An organisation cannot perform both roles within one application.

If your organisation is not currently listed as an eligible organisation you can apply to become an eligible organisation.

Organisations can only apply as the lead organisation on one submitted application. However, organisations with project co-leads or industrial project partners may appear on any number of applications.

The lead organisation:

• will play a strategic leadership role in shaping the vision, skills priorities, and delivery model

• will lead submission of the application

• will act as the training grant holder if you are successful

• does not require doctoral research degree awarding powers, but an organisation with these powers must be present within your consortium

• must provide the principal base (host) for a minimum of one student per year of intake for this funding opportunity.

Identification of the project lead should not be interpreted as recognition as the dominant partner or where the majority of studentships will be hosted.

While only one individual can be included as project lead on the UKRI Funding Service, UKRI welcomes applications that reflect flexible and joint leadership models.

Lead organisations may join with additional organisations which will also host students or support delivery of the training programme. You are encouraged to engage effectively with other organisations to ensure delivery of a truly interdisciplinary training environment and experience for students. Any organisations hosting students must be named as collaborating organisations on your application.

Project co-leads are welcome at either the lead organisation or collaborating organisations. Project leads and co-leads may include:

• research technical professionals

• innovation and commercialisation professionals

• research software engineers

• professional training and programme managers, where they play an integral role in programme delivery

Project Partners

Organisations may also act as project partners on your application. Unlike collaborating organisations or subcontractors who can receive funds from the grant, project partners make direct or indirect contributions to the grant and cannot receive funds from it.

More information is available on roles in funding applications.

Information regarding the nature of these collaborations must be included within your application in the ‘Project partners’ section. Any organisation acting as a project partner may do so on any number of applications, as long as they are able to support them all if funded.

An organisation cannot on the same application act as a project partner and as a lead or collaborating organisation.

We welcome applications to include a wide range of project partner organisations contributing to research and skills training. This can include, but is not limited to:

• universities that are not leading or co-leading the proposal

• businesses of all scales

• public sector organisations, such as public sector research establishments and government at all levels, including devolved administrations

• third sector organisations

• other key stakeholders across the research and innovation landscape

We encourage you to consider opportunities to attract leverage from non-UKRI sources over the lifetime of the programme, to strengthen the financial sustainability, ambition and real-world relevance of the programme. This may include approaches at the programme level or in support of individual doctoral programmes, where appropriate. You should describe how your programme will create the conditions for attracting such investment.

Your application must demonstrate that there is significant added value from any project partners you choose to form part of your consortium. Examples could include but are not limited to:

• financial commitments to partially, or fully, fund additional studentships

• hosting work experience, placements, venture building activities or similar

• co-supervision or mentoring

• training for students, programme staff, or both

• access to facilities, infrastructure, data, customers or markets

• delivery of training, including on entrepreneurship, venture creation or commercialisation

• commitment to cover the costs of access to facilities or training that cannot otherwise be provided

• strategic links to an important stakeholder or user

• supporting employees into doctoral study

There is no limit to the total number of organisations you may include within your application. However, each member of the consortium must make meaningful contributions to the delivery of the training grant, as set out in your application.

International Researchers

The UKRI-RCN Money Follows Cooperation Agreement, and the UKRI-IIASA agreement do not apply to this funding opportunity. As such grants submitted to this funding opportunity cannot include an IIASA or a Norway-based project co-lead (international).

You should include all international collaborators (or UK partners not based at approved organisations) as project partners.

Resubmissions

We will not accept uninvited resubmissions of projects that have been submitted to UKRI or any other funder.

Find out more about UKRI’s resubmissions policy.

Equality, Diversity And Inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.

We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:

• career breaks

• support for people with caring responsibilities

• flexible working

• alternative working patterns

UKRI can offer disability and accessibility support for UKRI applicants and grant holders during the application and assessment process.

Demand Management

Demand management is being applied to this funding opportunity. As outlined in the ‘Who can apply’ section, organisations can submit one application as lead.

Aim

The successful doctoral focal award will address the UK Government AI Hardware Plan by:

• training a pipeline of doctoral-level very large-scale integration chip design and advanced compute specialists, building capability in AI accelerators, hardware-software co-design and energy-efficient systems, strengthening industry-academia collaboration, and establishing a national centre of excellence in semiconductor design

• delivering interdisciplinary, cohort-based doctoral training in integrated circuit design, systems-on-chip, verification, and system-level capability

• training cohorts of doctoral researchers with deep, industry-relevant design expertise, leading to physical demonstrators such as tape-out and so on

• anchoring UK capability in areas critical to AI hardware and advanced compute

Given the importance of this area to the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, sector plans and AI Hardware Plan, UKRI is making this investment to ensure graduates have the desired skills needed to support economic growth and productivity in key areas of strength in the UK semiconductor sector.

Scope

This funding opportunity will fund doctoral focal awards to train the next generation of UK researchers and innovators. Doctoral focal awards provide support for areas that require a concentration of studentships in combination with a highly tailored training programme.

Semiconductors are a critical component of the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, specifically within the Digital and Technologies Sector Plan. The primary aim is to build upon the UK’s existing, globally recognised, research strengths in areas such as chip design, and application with photonic integrated circuits and compound semiconductors, rather than developing new capabilities from scratch, and to translate these strengths into industrial impact.

Currently, while EPSRC provides doctoral training in other semiconductor areas, there are no doctoral focal awards specifically covering chip design. The recent eFutures UK research landscape report (PDF, 37.8MB) highlights the need for further doctoral training provision in the semiconductor sector. Furthermore, the UK Government AI Hardware Plan mandates a new doctoral focal award in chip design to strengthen the long-term talent pipeline, supporting advanced research and early-stage innovation.

Remit

The successful doctoral focal award will deliver interdisciplinary, cohort-based training. Your proposal must cover the following core technical competencies:

• preparing chip designs suitable for a wide range of AI and future compute applications, including carrying out AI workloads and inference tasks efficiently

• chip design expertise, including hands-on application of industry-standard electronic design automation (EDA) tools, validation, and verification methodologies. This also includes expertise in chiplets, photonic backplanes, and heterogeneous integration to push the boundaries of system-level performance

• a comprehensive understanding of modern compute architectures, including memory integration and emerging paradigms such as neuromorphic computing

• application of design principles to optoelectronics, optical interconnects, and photonic integrated circuits, taking advantage of the low power, low heat, and high-speed properties of optical backplanes. This must also include compound semiconductors for high-efficiency power electronics

• training on assembly capabilities, packaging, and the integration of novel substrates targeting current and future manufacturing possibilities

• as an additional element, you may wish to include projects exploring chip design assurance and verification to understand how chip designs map onto the actual manufactured product

What Is Out Of Remit

The following are out of remit:

• proposals that do not have chip design, systems-on-chip, verification methods and advanced compute as their primary focus

• research focused solely on foundational materials science without a direct application to hardware design or advanced compute

• software-only AI algorithm development that does not involve hardware co-design or physical implementation

Match Funding And Industry Expectations

Industry partners must be integrated into the delivery of the programme through direct placements, technical enablement, and co-delivery of training.

There is an expectation that you raise non-UKRI cash contributions towards studentship costs. It is expected that this will come from UK industry. The successful applicants will be expected to raise a minimum of a 20% cash contribution towards the total studentship costs to increase the number of students in each cohort.

Partners are also expected to provide access to critical infrastructure such as EDA tools, intellectual property (IP) libraries, and compute resources.

You may wish to adopt an Engineering Doctorate (EngD) model, combining doctoral training with technical training in an industry setting via placements with a sponsoring company.

Link To Assessment Questions

Your proposal will be assessed against how well it meets this scope. Your:

• alignment with the national strategies and response to the skills shortage will be assessed under ‘Vision’

• delivery mechanism, cohort management, external advisory board governance, and inclusive student environment will be assessed under ‘Approach’

• coverage of the core technical competencies (chip design, architectures, photonics, manufacture) will be assessed under ‘Technical scope and training programme’

• ability to secure match funding, placements and infrastructure access will be assessed under ‘Industry co-creation and placements’

To support your response, you should include examples of technology-agnostic problem statements that students might tackle, such as enabling AI workloads in low-power data centres.

Training Model

The expectations for the skills and training provided by each award are:

• to train cohorts of at least 10 students on a four-year doctorate, bringing together a critical mass of academic and industrial supervisors of internationally recognised research excellence with a track record of doctoral supervision

• the programme will be delivered at cohort level, including cohort‑based training, peer learning and peer networking, to ensure that students have opportunities to collaborate, exchange ideas and benefit from peer-to-peer support training

• a cohort identity will be developed and maintained across the lifetime of the training programme

• studentships will be advertised to encourage a diverse range of applicants

• the recruitment process will be fair, open and transparent in line with UKRI good practice principles in recruitment and training at a doctoral level

• students will receive structured time, training and support to undertake both high‑quality doctoral research and venture creation, with flexibility to test, refine and pivot commercial opportunities in response to market signals and technological changes

• doctoral projects will be designed and planned so that, barring exceptional circumstances, students submit their thesis within their funded period. The maximum funded period is five years full-time equivalent, but durations above four years full-time equivalent must be clearly justified as providing value for money

• students will be assessed, using approaches such as a traditional thesis, thesis by portfolio, artefact, composition or other formats that meet quality assurance

• students will move between academic and non-academic environments, including through placements where appropriate

• to deliver a formal, assessable programme of taught coursework, which should develop and enhance, for example, technical disciplinary and multidisciplinary knowledge, as well as broadening skills including, for example, project management, entrepreneurship and commercialisation

• to embed a culture of responsible research and innovation, environmental sustainability, equality, diversity and inclusion, and trusted research approaches to the highest standard. Successful applications will be required to develop detailed plans and processes demonstrating how these essential elements will be embedded in their centre

• relatedly, to provide opportunities for students to engage with industrial and government stakeholders, for example in the form of joint supervision and industrial placements. This should extend beyond the co-creation of doctoral projects and include the support for co-working and mobility between academia, industry, government and internationally

• student wellbeing will be embedded, recognising the pressures of venture creation. Support should include access to pastoral and mental health support beyond supervisors, and mechanisms to manage periods of heightened intensity. Support from supervisors, mentors and partners must appropriately reflect commercialisation realities such as iteration, pivots and non-linear progress

• the training should maximise the impact from this investment and grow capacity in this area for the benefit of the nation. When pursuing industrial placements, the management team will need to ensure students are given sufficient time to complete their doctoral studies

• as appropriate, to provide innovative approaches to doctoral study. This may include support for students who are based in non-academic organisations for the majority of their time, either receiving a stipend or by contributing to their salary

• where beneficial for the research area, student or project partner, we expect you to build on routes such as engineering doctorates and the innovative approaches in EPSRC centres for doctoral training, doctoral training partnership mobility pilots, or other recent UKRI training investments

• to create opportunities for supervisors and students to identify and align synergies between individual doctoral projects so that the sum of the activity is greater than its component parts

• to support mechanisms, where appropriate, by which students can reach out to the broader research community, user community and wider public

• to add value to the UK’s existing landscape by working with other large investments to develop an integrated network of research, innovation and skills capability

• to provide appropriate access to a wide range of equipment, facilities and e-infrastructure, for example, software and high-performance computing. If appropriate to their research, students should also have access to large facilities and UKRI national research facilities

• risks will be identified and managed, including oversight of individual projects, adherence to subsidy control, trusted and responsible research and innovation, UK anchoring of foreground IP for national benefit, and compliance with UKRI open access requirements

Additionally, you may choose to extend aspects of training and support to students not following the full venture doctorate programme funded by this award, where those students have strong entrepreneurial ambition and their research has commercial potential. If this model is pursued, at least 60% of students must go through the full venture doctorate programme.

Governance And Compliance

Strong governance will be required to deliver these awards, with effective oversight of all training, capability‑building and exploratory activities. Applications must include independent oversight, including an advisory board, to provide scrutiny, assurance and strategic challenge. This should form part of an approach to enable continuous learning, evaluation and adaptation.

Awards must be delivered within UKRI’s terms and conditions for training funding (TGCs). There are several areas of these conditions to highlight.

On intellectual property (IP):

• under TGC 11, you are responsible for arrangements relating to the ownership and management of intellectual property, including that intellectual assets are used to the benefit of society and the economy

• results of research should be published in accordance with normal academic practice and UKRI’s policy on open access, balancing this with the protection of commercially sensitive information

• in particular you must ensure timely deposit of doctoral theses (within 12 months of award, subject to justified and documented exceptions),and appropriate acknowledgement of UKRI funding in publications, outputs and communications

On UK anchoring:

• through this funding opportunity, we aim to maximise the economic and societal value for the UK of IP and related assets generated through publicly funded doctoral training

• you must aim to ensure foreground IP is owned, governed and exploited by UK-based individuals or organisations, contributing to long-term national benefit

• the focus on ‘anchoring’ in the UK does not preclude international collaboration, licensing or scaling, but instead emphasises early-stage ownership, control and decision-making being retained within the UK

• UKRI recognises that decisions about where value is ultimately created are influenced by a wide range of factors beyond IP, such as access to markets, talent, visas, tax incentives and capital

On subsidy control:

• under TGCs 2.3.1 and 2.3.5, you must ensure at all times that the training grant funding awarded to you is compliant with the Subsidy Control Act 2022, or the EU State Aid regulations where funding will affect trade between Northern Ireland and the EU as envisaged by Article 10 of the Windsor Framework

• further information about the Subsidy Control Act 2022 requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk)

• EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. See the Windsor Framework to check if these rules apply to your organisation

• you should seek independent legal advice on what this means for you, before applying

On trusted research and innovation (TR&I):

• under TGCs including 2.2.2, 2.6.2 and 2.7.1, you must ensure that the award and all student projects are compliant with relevant UK legislation and UKRI’s principles on trusted research and innovation

• awards must embed TR&I principles in due diligence, partnership working and decisions relating to funding or collaboration

Duration

We are proposing a two-plus-three model, where UKRI will support an initial two cohorts of students, starting in September 2027 and we will work with the successful team on further cohorts with additional funding. This approach will give us time to understand demand, industry partnerships, and appropriate training formats for this evolving industry in an AI era.

The duration of this initial award is 66 months.

Where the end date of a studentship is subsequently extended later than the end date of the grant, in line with training grant conditions 6 and 8, the award holder will be able to apply to UKRI at the time to extend the grant, which may be beyond six months.

The grant must start no earlier than April 2027, with students expected to start in September 2027 and they must complete no later than August 2032. Awards will have a fixed start date, on the date requested in the application.

Funding Available

Up to £6 million funding is available for the initial phase of this funding opportunity. As a non-full economic cost award, UKRI will fund 100% of eligible costs listed in the opportunity. Eligible costs vary between UKRI training grants, so please check the lists below for full details.

All costs (including stipends and fees) requested in applications should be calculated at your chosen October 2026 rates with no addition made to consider inflation over the length of the funding period. This includes the appropriate fee rate for your institution(s) and any enhanced stipend rates above the UKRI minimum, described below. UKRI will include an allowance for fee and stipend indexation at the final funding stage.

What We Will Fund

We will fund studentship costs up to a maximum of the equivalent of 10 students per cohort for two cohorts. This could be, for example, 100% funding for 20 students or 50% funding for 40 students. Students will be funded up to an initial of two cohorts. UKRI will work with the successful team about further funding to support additional cohorts in the future, but this is not guaranteed.

Applications must specify the number of students that will be supported, as well as the number of students in the initial two cohorts. This should align to the proposed delivery model and costs per studentship proposed in the application. Justifications for costs, numbers of students, durations of studentships and numbers of cohorts will be examined carefully to ensure value for money.

UKRI funding for studentship costs includes the following.

Tuition Fees

Fees charged to UKRI cannot be higher than the fee charged by the university for home funded students on similar programmes. UKRI’s standard 30% cap on international students will apply.

Stipends

The stipends must be at least at the minimum rates published by UKRI. We will not cover additional college fees. You are encouraged to request funding for enhanced stipends, where justified, to attract UK home students in the context of the area of research and training and UK skills need.

Stipend support will also be covered for doctoral candidates based for the majority of their time in a company, or other non-academic organisation. If you are proposing more innovative options such as contributions to salaries, you are encouraged to contact UKRI before submission to discuss the best route to fund this. You must ensure that training grant funding is compliant with the Subsidy Control Act 2022 at all times.

Research Training Support Grant (Rtsg)

This covers items for individual students such as travel, consumables, and facility access where this is linked to conducting the research of the project, or specialised training such as a summer school only being attended by a student due to their project.

UKRI training grant condition 4.5 states that at least 50% of the total cost of any studentship must be drawn from UKRI. This condition will be waived for this funding opportunity. Award holders will therefore be allowed students where more than 50% of their studentship costs come from non-UKRI sources, if they are able to attract enough leverage to achieve this. These students will still be recorded on UKRI’s studentship data system and count towards the total cohort size for the 30 % cap for international students.

As well as the studentship costs above, we will also fund other costs including:

• leadership and management costs

• costs to set up new focal awards

• the development of training which forms part of the cohort training package, for example, a course taken by a whole cohort or offered as a module as part of a student’s training package

• direct costs that are explicitly linked to training activities and student development

• additional support needed to facilitate diversity and mobility of career paths, and to accommodate doctoral students at different career stages or employed in relevant industrial sectors

• wider career development experience for students

• innovative routes for student recruitment and widening the participation of underrepresented groups in doctoral study

What We Will Not Fund

UKRI will not fund the following costs:

• equipment over £25,000 in value (including VAT). Smaller items of equipment (individually under £25,000) can be included under RTSG or other costs, as appropriate

• costs associated with student supervision

• estates and indirect costs

Supporting Skills And Talent

We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.

Trusted Research And Innovation (Tr&I)

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has a long-standing and continuing commitment to supporting and enabling safe and effective collaboration in research and innovation. UKRI is equally committed to ensuring that this takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks.

Our Principles and expectations set out the principles that UKRI applies to TR&I and our general expectations of the research organisations (including businesses, research institutes, and research technical organisations) that we support. Organisations supported by UKRI should be able to provide evidence that their internal controls and processes meet these expectations.

See further guidance and information about TR&I, including where applicants can find additional support.

The doctoral research that will be undertaken within this doctoral focal award is strategically important to the UK, is inherently dual use in nature, the research will need to be industrially relevant and will involve direct industrial partnership. You are therefore required to work closely with your university research office or assurance office to ensure compliance with UKRI’s TR&I policy.

In addition, you must be compliant with the relevant UK legislation, including the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act 2021, UK Financial Sanctions legislation, UK Export Control legislation, the Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS), and National Security Act 2023 including the arrangements for the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS).

You must have and implement the mechanisms, processes and governance arrangements in place within your institution to manage risks associated with dual-use research. This includes implementing appropriate safeguards, particularly in relation to the due diligence, vetting and risk assessment of new business partners and engagements as well as any international dimensions.

You can use the specific TR&I questions to assess TR&I risks, ensuring activities are scoped and developed to proportionately embed TR&I processes and controls throughout their lifecycle. Successful applicants should be prepared to answer follow-up questions from UKRI in relation to TR&I if requested.

Robust plans must also be in place to protect intellectual property, datasets (including Process Design Kits and data related to EDA tools), research outputs and other strategic assets. Where relevant, you must ensure that appropriate export control considerations have been addressed and that any necessary export licences are in place.

See further guidance and information about TR&I, including where applicants can find additional support.

Expression Of Interest (Eoi)

You must submit a mandatory EOI in the form of an email sent to ict.theme@epsrc.ukri.org by 5 November 2026 at 4:00pm UK time.

This is for planning and organisational purposes and will not form part of the assessment. The email should indicate:

• that you intend to apply for the funding opportunity

• who the lead applicant will be

• any planned collaborating institutions

Applications may be developed and expanded with more (or fewer) collaborators prior to submission, and this will not affect your application. You may appear in more than one EOI, but an individual institution and individual applicant can only be the lead of one application.

Applications to this funding opportunity will not be considered if:

• you do no submit an EOI

• you submit your EOI after 5 November at 4:00pm (UK time)

• you submit more than one EOI as a lead applicant. You should consult your research office to avoid multiple applications inadvertently being submitted

• institutions submit more than one application as a lead

To Apply

We are running this funding opportunity on the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.

The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.

Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.

Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.

• Confirm you are the project lead.

• Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password.

• Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page.

• Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office.

• Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.

• Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.

Please be aware that research office and finance teams undertake checks on hosting arrangements and financial eligibility. The ultimate responsibility for ensuring compliance with all opportunity requirements lies with the applicant.

Where indicated, you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant.

When including images, you must:

• provide a descriptive caption or legend for each image immediately underneath it in the text box (this must be outside the image and counts towards your word limit)

• insert each new image onto a new line

• use files smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format

Images should only be used to convey important visual information that cannot easily be put into words. The following are not permitted, and your application will be rejected if you include:

• sentences or paragraphs of text

• tables

• excessive quantities of images

A few words are permitted where the image would lack clarity without the contextual words, such as a diagram, where text labels are required for an axis or graph column.

For more guidance on the Funding Service, see:

• how applicants use the Funding Service

• how research offices use the Funding Service

• how reviewers use the Funding Service

References

References should be included within the word count of the appropriate question section. You should use your discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.

Hyperlinks can be used in reference information. When including references, you should consider how your references will be viewed and used by the assessors, ensuring that:

• references are easily identifiable by the assessors

• references are formatted as appropriate to your research

• persistent identifiers are used where possible

General Use Of Hyperlinks

Applications should be self-contained. You should only use hyperlinks to link directly to reference information. You must not include links to web resources to extend your application. Assessors are not required to access links to conduct assessment or recommend a funding decision.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Ai)

Use of generative AI tools to prepare funding applications is permitted, however, caution should be applied.

For more information see our policy on the use of generative AI in application and assessment.

Deadline

EPSRC must receive your application by 2 December at 4:00pm UK time.

You will not be able to apply after this time.

Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.

Following the submission of your application to this funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and submitted applications will not be amended. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.

If an application is withdrawn prior to peer review or office rejected due to substantive errors in the application, it cannot be resubmitted to the opportunity.

This funding opportunity is open to organisations with standard eligibility. Check if your organisation is eligible.

Organisations eligible to apply include:

• higher education institutions

• research council institutes

• eligible independent research organisations and Catapult centres

• public sector research establishments (PSREs)

Check if you’re eligible for funding.

PSREs wishing to be involved in an application are required to choose whether they wish to do so either as a project lead or project co-lead, where they will provide the principal base (host) for students, or as a project partner. An organisation cannot perform both roles within one application.

If your organisation is not currently listed as an eligible organisation you can apply to become an eligible organisation.

Organisations can only apply as the lead organisation on one submitted application. However, organisations with project co-leads or industrial project partners may appear on any number of applications.

The lead organisation:

• will play a strategic leadership role in shaping the vision, skills priorities, and delivery model

• will lead submission of the application

• will act as the training grant holder if you are successful

• does not require doctoral research degree awarding powers, but an organisation with these powers must be present within your consortium

• must provide the principal base (host) for a minimum of one student per year of intake for this funding opportunity.

Identification of the project lead should not be interpreted as recognition as the dominant partner or where the majority of studentships will be hosted.

While only one individual can be included as project lead on the UKRI Funding Service, UKRI welcomes applications that reflect flexible and joint leadership models.

Lead organisations may join with additional organisations which will also host students or support delivery of the training programme. You are encouraged to engage effectively with other organisations to ensure delivery of a truly interdisciplinary training environment and experience for students. Any organisations hosting students must be named as collaborating organisations on your application.

Project co-leads are welcome at either the lead organisation or collaborating organisations. Project leads and co-leads may include:

• research technical professionals

• innovation and commercialisation professionals

• research software engineers

• professional training and programme managers, where they play an integral role in programme delivery

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