CTP-SAI four-year studentships for October 2025

The UKRI and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has awarded a Collaborative Training Partnership (CTP) grant to a consortium led by G’s Growers Ltd. The Collaborative Training Partnership for Sustainable Agricultural Innovation (CTP-SAI) has been co-developed with NIAB as part of its alliance with the University of Cambridge, the Crop Science Centre, the James Hutton Institute, and leading UK universities.

The CTP programme for Sustainable Agricultural Innovation (CTP-SAI) will ensure young scientists are ‘business aware’, opening up opportunities for careers across industry. Ensuring the programme is inclusive and recruits a diverse range of candidates into agriculture is a priority. The CTP-SAI aims to lead the sector by example, training the next generation of new thinkers, ready to act in the public and private sector to effect positive global change in the food and farming system. The programme is supported by leading UK and international agri-food businesses, research organisations and charitable organisations representing the collective needs of farmers and practitioners.

Topics:

We are offering exciting fully funded PhD opportunities on the following topics:

• Assessing efficient application and emission reduction from using low carbon footprint fertilisers in potato agronomy (Ref: CTP-SAI-070)
• Preventing, predicting and protecting crops from vectors of barley yellow dwarf virus (bydv) (Ref: CTP-SAI-080)
• Guardians from the Grass: Harnessing fungal endophytes to suppress plant parasitic nematodes of potatoes (Ref: CTP-SAI-081)
• Future Faba: Quantifying the impacts of faba beans on soil processes for resilient agriculture (Ref: CTP-SAI-082)
• Breaking Breeding Bottlenecks: Combining remote sensing and machine learning to rapidly phenotype field crop yield potential (Ref: CTP-SAI-083)
• Predicting fungicide resistance evolution: Combining theoretical and experimental approaches (Ref: CTP-SAI-085)
• Optimising transient carbohydrate partitioning in wheat to improve climate resilience (Ref: CTP-SAI-086)
• Optimising cover crops in faba bean rotations: Implications for SFI policy (Ref: CTP-SAI-088)
• Assessing the impacts of regenerative farming on UK lowland peatlands (Ref: CTP-SAI-092)

Application

Anyone interested should complete the online application form before the deadline of 5^th January 2025. Interviews will be held during February 2025.

Please contact recruitment-ctp-sai@niab.com for further application details.