EPSRC Industrial Case Accounts

Industrial Cooperative Awards in Science & Technology (CASE) provides funding for PhD studentships where businesses take the lead in arranging projects with an academic partner of their choice.
These aim of these awards is to provide PhD students with a first-rate, challenging research training experience, within the context of a mutually beneficial research collaboration between academic and partner organisations for example industry and policy making bodies.

Benefits to the student – Industrial CASE provides outstanding students access to training, facilities and expertise not available in an academic setting alone. Students benefit from a diversity of experimental approaches with an applied / translational dimension. Students have an opportunity to develop a range of valuable skills and significantly enhance their future employability; many will become research leaders of the future.

Benefits to the academic / partner organisations – Industrial CASE studentships encourage productive engagement between partners who benefit from a motivated, high-quality PhD student undertaking cutting-edge research relevant to the organisations‘ priorities and objectives. The studentship provides opportunities to explore novel research collaborations and strengthen current partnerships.

How it works
A company allocated an award defines a research project and picks an academic partner. Once the arrangements for the project have been agreed between the company and research organisation, they can recruit a student.

Companies may place these studentships with any Research Organisation that also receives Doctoral Training Partnership funding from EPSRC. The rationale for this is twofold:
To provide a potentially better student experience (via the student being part of a larger cohort of individuals working in leading research teams for example).
To facilitate the strategic use of all EPSRC’s students via EPSRC working with a smaller group of companies and research organisations, to target training at areas of particular strategic importance.