The London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Partnership, known as LIDo, has received a further five years' funding from the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
The award aims to develop the next generation of bioscience researchers and will fund 190 PhD studentships overall, of which a minimum of 55 are earmarked as industrial collaboration "CASE" studentships. The funding represents an investment of over £20m as part of the third phase of the BBSRC's Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTP).
Queen Mary University of London is one of three London-based Russell Group University partners involved in the LIDo programme and will continue to support the training of early career scientists over the partnerships’ next phase.
LIDo is now the largest BBSRC DTP and as the only BBSRC-funded programme in London, the flagship for PhD bioscience researcher development in the capital.
Other LIDo partners include University College London, King's College London, Royal Veterinary College, Birkbeck College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine plus two new members: Royal Holloway University London and Greenwich University's Natural Resources Institute.
From 2020 LIDo will also welcome four new "Associate Partners", Unilever, Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, the Food Standards Agency and the Animal and Plant Health Agency. Each Associate Partner will contribute funding for additional studentships and joint projects with university partners.
Around half of the studentships will be for projects jointly supervised in two different LIDo institutions, reflecting the highly collaborative and interdisciplinary training mission of the programme.
Professor Richard Pickersgill, Head of the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary comments:
"We’re pleased to see this innovative programme has received further investment from the UKRI-BBSRC that will allow it to flourish until at least 2024.
"The LIDo programme offers a unique opportunity for students to pursue interdisciplinary research projects in world-class universities and institutions across London. So far we’ve welcomed several students to Queen Mary through LIDo and we look forward to continuing to support the programme and its future students over the coming years."
LIDo focuses on combining biology with computational, materials and physical sciences and provides intensive training in coding for biologists and biology for students with a physical/computational sciences background.
The programme emphasises equality and diversity through outreach activities and coaching for minority applicants, as well as summer undergraduate placements for students studying at less research-intensive institutions across London and the South East region.
For more on the UKRI-BBSRC London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Programme see here.