1. MRC PhD student recruitment 2017
MRC are moving away from supporting individual students in individual HEIs and towards creating cohorts of students, supported by their supervisors and their institutional support teams across HEIs.
LSHTM has formed a partnership with SGUL
for MRC funded PhD training

2. The LSHTM – SGUL partnership Shared research priorities
Global infectious diseases
Causal inference from large data sets
Evaluating complex interventions
Collaborative research
Antimicrobial resistance
Genomic medicine
Understanding asthma
Cardiovascular disease
Built environment, lifestyle and health
Complementary training
Genomic Medicine
Quantitative skills
Interdisciplinary skills

3. Enhanced training for future research leaders
Academically excellent
Highly motivated Outward looking

4. Who is eligible to join the cohort?
Individual training fellows
Population health scientist fellows
Strategic skills training fellows
CASE students
Doctoral training programme students
MRC Unit students registered at LSHTM/SGUL
- MRC Gambia, MRC Uganda, Clinical Trials Unit
Х Staff funded on MRC research projects

5. The current MRC cohort at LSHTM/SGUL
academic year: 35 students
11 Vaccine DTP
9 MRC LID
5 MRC CTU
3 CASE/MRC tech
2 MRC Gambia
2 Population Health fellows
1 MRC Uganda
1 MRC Farr Institute
1 Strategic skills fellow

6. MRC London Intercollegiate DTP (MRC LID)
Up to 12* new students per year for at least 3 years
Each funded for 3.5 years
Includes a fully funded 3 month internship
Collaboration/co-supervision between SGUL and LSHTM strongly encouraged
Strategic skills:
Quantitative skills; Interdisciplinary skills; whole organism biology
Three themes:
Global infectious disease, quantitative skills for big data; complex interventions

7. Research Degrees Committee Research Degrees Committee
Governance
Student Representation
Research Degrees Committee
(LSHTM)
Registration, performance monitoring, progression and regulation
Research Degrees Committee
(SGUL)
Registration, performance monitoring, progression, regulation
Progress monitoring reports
Progress monitoring reports
Annual report
Board
Strategic direction, programme management
Supervisor and project selection
Student recruitment and support
Student Council
Student Council
Board Membership
Academic Leads (Chair/Deputy Chair)
Pro-director of Teaching & Learning, LSHTM
Head of Graduate School, SGUL
Theme leads
Student representatives
Secretariat:
PGR admin lead, SGUL and LSHTM

8. Management Board Members:
Eleanor Riley, ITD Mark Fisher, SGUL Suzanne Filteau, EPH Rachel Allen, SGUL John Edmunds, EPH Julian Ma, SGUL David Strachan, SGUL Neil Pearce, EPH Steve Cummins, PHP Jenny Thompson, LSHTM Jade Bearham, SGUL
Academic Lead/Chair
Deputy Chair
For Pro-director Teaching & Learning, LSHTM
Head of Graduate School, SGUL
Student representatives
Theme leads, Global Infectious Diseases
Theme Leads, Quantitative Skills forBig Data
Theme Lead, Complex Interventions

9. What does the studentship provide?
Fees paid at UK/EU rate
Stipend for UK resident students for 3.5 yrs
Research support grant of £5,300 per year
Access to a pot of flexible funds to pay for additional research costs, networking activities, additional training, field work, internships, visits etc

10. Recruitment Timetable 2017

11. Submitting potential projects
Forms will be sent out to all staff on September 30th
Forms to be returned by November 1st
No more than one project per person as primary supervisor
You may be named as a co-supervisor on one additional project
You may not be named as a primary supervisor if you were the primary supervisor for a successful candidate in the previous round.
Collaborative projects (i.e. LSHTM/SGUL joint supervision) are particularly encouraged but single institution projects are also eligible.
Projects and supervisors will be vetted by the DTP management board and supervisors will be informed whether their project has been selected or not
Accepted projects will be advertised (wb November 21st)

12. Criteria for assessing project and supervisor suitability
Does the project address an important issue in
Global infectious disease?
Quantitative analysis of big data?
Complex interventions?
Does the project provide high quality training in one or more strategic skills areas?
Quantitative skills
Interdisciplinary skills
Whole organism biology
Does the supervisory team have a good track record in research and in student supervision?
Can the project be carried out within the student’s £5,000 pa research budget or
Do the supervisors have access to sufficient additional research funds to fund the project?

13. Student shortlisting: 1
Potential students may apply for only one project
Primary supervisors will receive copies of all applications for their project, wb 16th January
In discussion with the co-supervisor, they should indicate for each application whether they would be willing to supervise this student or not
Supervisors are encouraged to make contact with strong candidates at this stage
Applicants that they are prepared to supervise should be ranked in order of preference (1st to last)
Supervisors should resist the temptation to rank only students who they know (e.g. current or prior BSc/MSc students or RAs)
Ranked list returned to by 5th Feb.

14. Student shortlisting: 2
The DTP Management Board will review all the applications.
Those ranked as suitable by supervisors will looked at in detail and the very best candidates will be shortlisted for interview.
Any apparently high quality candidates that have not been ranked by the supervisors will be looked at in particular detail and, if necessary, we may revert to supervisors for an explanation/reconsideration.

15. Interviewing Interviews will take place over two days. Day One:
A briefing of the programme,
Guided tours of LSHTM and SGUL
Meeting with their potential supervisor
Social event with current MRC cohort
Day Two:
Interviews by DTP board
Two panels: lab /non-lab
Two panels meet together to decide on final allocation