About
In recent years there has been a growing appreciation in Ireland and worldwide of the significant contribution that PhD graduates make to economic success and social progress. For example, the European Union’s Lisbon Strategy (2000-2010) called for innovation as the motor for economic change pointing towards the need for “investing more in young people, education, research and innovation to generate wealth and provide security for every citizen.” This focus was reflected in Irish policy, notably in the Strategy for Science Technology and Innovation (2006-2013) which called for a doubling of the country’s output of PhD graduates and in the follow-up Innovation 2020 document which calls for a further increase of 30% in the numbers of enrolled research students in our Higher Education Institutes. In response to these national targets, and in line with the Institute’s goal of providing skilled graduates to meet the needs of the South East region of Ireland in particular, SETU Waterford in 2014 introduced fully-funded PhD scholarships awarded on a competitive basis based on applications from its research-active academic staff and postdoctoral researchers.
The Office of Research, Innovation and Graduate Studies now invites applications from academic and research staff members interested in supervising PhD students to be funded under the SETU Waterford Co-Fund PhD Scholarship Programme 2016. The overall purpose of this scholarship programme is to:
- Promote high quality research in line with WIT’s strategic objectives and the provision of research and development training for highly skilled graduates leading to the award of a PhD; and
- Support the increase in PhD numbers at WIT, in line with national priorities.
Applications from supervisory teams involving new supervisors are particularly welcome and will be reviewed favourably in line with the evaluation criteria and scoring, in order to continue to expand the research supervisory capacity of the Institute. In such cases, supervisory arrangements must comply with WIT’s Postgraduate Research Degrees Regulations and Procedures.
Those wishing to put forward an application are asked to complete the following expression of interest form in advance of completing an application.
N.B. Expressions of Interest should be submitted by supervisors on behalf of a student and not by prospective students.
Useful Documents
Prospective applicants may be interested to inspect the following documents:
- Detailed Terms & Conditions regarding the programme.
- The full application form to follow the expression of interest.
- A full list of FAQs to assist applicants with their submission.
- Slides from the information sessions - Please note this includes information on both the SETU Waterford Scholarship as well as Co-Fund Scholarship - ONLY Co-Fund applications are being sought in this call
Closing Dates
Deadline for Expression of Interest is 5pm August 9th 2017
Deadline for full proposal is 5pm September 8th 2017