Following the webinar on our new studentships call, the questions asked have been answered and the presentation made available to download.
CREDS is now receiving applications for up to eight doctoral studentships as part of the EPSRC Doctoral Training Partnership award to the University of Oxford.
A webinar was held on 17 September to explain the process in more detail and answer any questions. See our previous post to learn about the process and access the application documents.
Download a pdf of the webinar presentation (15 pages, 3.8 MB). Please note that this may not be suitable for assistive technology. If you would like an accessible format, please get in touch.
Q&A from the webinar
Q: Does the 6-page maximum limit for the project proposal include references and a title page?
A: Yes, it includes everything, but there is no need for a separate title page.
Q: Is there a database of academics willing to supervise CREDS applicants/proposals within the institutions from the consortium?
A: No. There is a list of the academic staff involved in CREDS on our people page with links to their institutional websites. It is certainly not an exhaustive list of those who could be approached, but it might be a good starting point. Willingness to supervise is likely to depend on proposed topics. We recommend approaching people individually who seem to have relevant research interests. Most academics are very open to this type of approach.
Q: Does the research have to be focused (partly or wholly) on energy demand within the UK?
A: No, it has to be relevant to energy demand in general. It is true that one of the assessment criteria is “relevance of the research proposed to UK energy demand priorities”. This is clearly easier to demonstrate for research on energy demand in the UK. However, UK priorities include mitigating climate change and supporting sustainable development, both of which can be supported by changes to energy demand outside the UK.
Q: Are teams of supervisors from two different universities allowed?
A: Yes. One supervisor will need to be identified as ‘primary supervisor’ for the purposes of the application, with the student admitted to their institution. But joint supervision across universities can work well.
Q: For successful students, is the intention that they join a cohort of CREDS students?
A: Yes, our intention would be to provide an ‘induction to CREDS’ to the whole cohort, and to engage them in CREDS activities where possible.
Q: Are there opportunities for involvement in existing themes of work?
A: Realistically, these are limited, as CREDS ends in March 2023, only 6 months after the students will begin. UKRI are currently considering options for supporting research on energy demand after March 2023, and this is likely to provide new opportunities.
Q: Does the funding cover overseas tuition fees or the host university should pay the difference?
A: We are currently taking advice on this issue and will update this page when the answer is available.
Q: Are you interested in applications which focus on the sociological (and possibly political/governance) side of energy demand, rather than solely the technical side?
A: Yes. There is a consensus in the energy demand community that innovation is largely socio-technical. We are interested in any inter-disciplinary research that relates to energy demand. We expect that the Panel making decisions will take a broad view of inter-disciplinarity.
Banner photo credit: FotoKachna on Adobe Stock