The NERC Oxford Doctoral Training Partnership in Environmental Research is seeking to recruit the most promising research students, from a wide variety of backgrounds, capable of developing their own research projects in line with the interests of our broad selection of supervisors.

We have 24 fully-funded studentships available each year, for home and EU students. Funding is available for up to four years per studentship.

The DTP offers a novel training environment across three broad science streams, each of which includes the influence of, and consequences for, human-environment interactions and finding solutions to real-world problems. This is offered in collaboration with an impressive list of partners.

• The ‘Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Processes’ stream spans research into biological processes, systems and their interactions, at scales ranging from the organism to the population, in spheres ranging from human health to natural ecosystems, over all timescales.
• The ‘Physical Climate System’ stream spans research across all aspects of the Physical Climate System, present, past and future, with strong links to climate impacts and mitigation.
• The ‘Dynamic Earth, Surface Processes and Natural Hazards’ stream spans activities from theoretical seismology and isotope geochemistry to the analysis of natural resources, quantification of surface processes over all timescales, and geophysical hazards and risk.

Students will spend term 1 undertaking a full-time cross-disciplinary core training programme that will give them a grounding in programming & software carpentry, mathematics and scientific computing, as well as introduce them to the broad spectrum of NERC remit research taking place at the university and enable them to see where their own interests lie within the larger context of environmental research. This will also give them the opportunity to include methods and collaborations they may otherwise not have considered to augment their research projects.

Projects will be developed in term 2 by students in collaboration with their chosen supervisors, and external partners. In term 3 students will transfer out to begin their research projects in one of six departments. Archaeology, Earth Sciences, Geography, Physics, Plant Sciences, Zoology. They will gain their D.Phil from this department, although the DTP will continue to provide support, training, career development and networking opportunities.

Application deadline: 20th January 2017 at midday