University of Warwick Awarded Over £5 million for Training Partnerships with Industry
The University of Warwick has won £5,788,206 in funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to further strengthen its links between postgraduate training and industry.
The new funding was announced this week at EPSRC’s Annual Conference by the Chief Executive, Professor John O’Reilly. The award will be used to continue to support a number of current programmes at the University linking postgraduate training and industry and it will also give some flexibility to allow the allow the development of new activities.
This funding uses a new approach by EPSRC using Collaborative Training Accounts (CTAs) which break the mould by raising collaborative training way up the university agenda and giving it strategic visibility. Instead of compartmentalised, individual schemes universities bid for a single collaborative training account. CTAs reward long-term planning and thinking; building the right relationships with employers in business and industry, and being agile in delivering against changing patterns in training needs and opportunities.
“Recently the Chancellor outlined his plans to introduce a long-term strategy for supporting science in Britain over the next ten years. One of the fundamental aspects of that framework is a commitment to more collaboration between universities and business,” said EPSRC’s Chief Executive, Professor John O’Reilly. “Collaborative Training Accounts will further promote and strengthen links between postgraduate training and the workplace. The aim is to establish a dynamic and responsive environment which is better able to match training provision with industry’s needs.”
Notes for Editors:
1. CTAs amalgamate five current schemes; the Engineering Doctorate, Industrial CASE (Co-operative Awards in Science and Engineering), Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, Masters Training Packages and Research Assistant Industrial Secondments. The new scheme combines all the budgets into a single fund with one application procedure which involves an organisation submitting a four-year business plan outlining their strategy for providing collaborative training.
2. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK’s main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. The EPSRC invests more than ?500 million a year in research and postgraduate training.