What are collaborative awards?

Collaborative or CASE studentships provide funding for some of the most able students to undertake up to four years of study for a masters plus a PhD degree or five years for part time awards. These projects are jointly designed and supervised by an ESRC recognised university department and a non-academic organisation. They can be from the public, private or voluntary sectors, ranging from multi-nationals, SME’s, local authorities and registered charities. Listed below are examples of project titles are being/have been funded by the ESRC:

• The role of Buddhist religious culture in biodiversity conservation under changing environmental and social conditions in Western Sichuan, China.
• Delivering Climate Change Policy in the English Regions: Reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions in the East Midlands.
• UK Migrant Policy in practice: The role of Public and Civic organisations.
• New Value-added models in Education: latent-variable multilevel to solve longstanding biases.???

A list of new projects and collaborating partners awarded in 2009 can be downloaded here (PDF).

What are the benefits of collaboration for the public/voluntary sector?

Organisations who have previously participated in the scheme have identified the following benefits from undertaking collaborative projects:?

• The opportunity to access key expertise that may not exist within the company or which may not be cost effective to develop in-house.
• An opportunity to test the value of collaborative research for a relatively modest outlay
• The ability to fund valuable but not necessarily the highest priority research, for which an economic case for doing the work in house would be difficult.
• Providing future researchers/potential employees with ‘real life’ experience of situations outside academia whereby academics have a better understanding of the public/voluntary sector and employees have improved research skills.
• Developing the skills and careers of staff???