Supervisors

Prospective students must apply to the organization(s) hosting the project(s) of their choice via the postgraduate student applications system of the partner organization. Prospective students to BAS, BGS and CEH should apply to the partner organization of the second supervisor (the awarding organization) then email the relevant information to the project primary supervisor. All prospective students also need to complete the online IAPETUS form (link will be available here in mid November 2020). Before completing this form, please read the DTP privacy policy as you will need to tick that you have read and understood this. Both parts of the application must be made by Friday 8th January 2021 at 5pm (GMT), which is the public deadline for applications that will apply across all of the Partnership.  Please note that some partners may have some earlier internal deadlines, and you are strongly encouraged to contact the supervisor of the proposed project to find out more.

Your postgraduate student application needs to specify clearly that you wish to be considered for an IAPETUS2 studentship and state the research project (s) that you wish to be considered for, quoting the relevant IAPETUS2 project references where possible. Although prospective students are encouraged to explore opportunities across the partnership, they may only finally be considered for an IAPETUS2 studentship for one project. After 8th January 2021, any prospective student who has made an application for more than one IAPETUS2 project will be contacted by email and asked to confirm which one of the projects they wish to be considered for.

Prospective students must complete the nomination form (which will be posted here in mid November) and provide/attach this along with the following documentation/information to your postgraduate student application:

1. Current CV.
2. Full transcripts of previous qualifications obtained to date.

Each Host Organization will nominate a number of applicants to go forward to interview.  The nominees must be prepared to be interviewed on 16th February 2021.  Interviews will be held on Zoom.

All successful applicants will be required to apply to the Postgraduate Certificate in Environmental Methods, which is an integral part of the IAPETUS2 training programme.  More details will be supplied when offers are made.

IAPETUS2’s postgraduate studentships are tenable for up to 3.5 years, depending on the doctoral research project the student is studying and provides the following package of financial support:

• A tax-free maintenance grant set at the UK Research Council’s national rate, which in 2020/21 is £15,285.
• Full payment of their tuition fees at the Home rate;
• Access to extensive research support funding; &
• Support for an external placement of up to six months.

Part-time award-holders are funded for seven years and receive a maintenance grant at 50% of the full-time rate.

Eligibility for UKRI-funded studentships is under review.  Please check back for further details later in November, when the DTP will have an update on its processes.

For more on the UKRI eligibility Terms and Conditions, see here

IAPETUS2 is looking for candidates with the following qualities and backgrounds:

• A first or 2:1 undergraduate degree, or have relevant comparable experience – we welcome applications from those with non-traditional routes to PhD study;
• In addition, candidates may also hold or be completing a Masters degree in their area of proposed study or a related discipline; &
• Potential to carry out excellent research, as demonstrated by individuals with a passion to follow a career pathway in environmental research or applications.

IAPETUS2 provides training for PhD students both as part of the cohort of IAPETUS2 students (and with continuity from the IAPETUS1 cohorts), and at the Host Organizations in which the project is based, and by providing access to external courses.  We use the Vitae Researcher Development Framework to plan training in order to fit into NERC’s Strategy for Providing Postgraduate Skills in the Environment Sector.

Each IAPETUS2 student will:

• Be registered for a separate qualification, a Postgraduate Certificate in Environmental Methods, which will recognize the transferable skills training and non-project-specific training undertaken.
• Have access to cohort-based activities at three points in the year: Induction in November, our SCENE Research Methods course in January, and our Annual Conference in May
• Have access to more specialized training courses (recent examples include isotope geochemistry and advanced statistics with R), with some of those courses the result of specific requests from our students
• Carry out Entrepreneurship training in the form of a “Mini-MBA”
• Take part in virtual discussion groups with the rest of the cohort at different times in the year
• Have access to funded placements, which can be student-led or designed by end-user partners