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This Doctoral Training Programme guide takes you through how a DTP differs from a traditional PhD. While searching through PhD options, you may have come across doctoral training programmes. You may also read about Doctoral Training Partnerships (the term UK Research and Innovation uses), Centres for Doctoral Training and, since 2025, Doctoral Landscape Awards. They're all ways of funding PhD students in a cohort, with structured training alongside your research.
A doctoral training programme (DTP) is usually a funded PhD course. Research Councils, charitable trusts and other major funders often award these studentships to Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs). CDTs are partnerships that run across several universities with a unified goal to work on joint research topics. CDTs often link up with industry partners. These industry links have the double benefit of supporting the funding and giving the research candidates experience in industry while they complete their PhD.
A doctoral training programme usually includes more structured training than a traditional PhD or DPhil, especially in the first year, when you build your research skills and methods alongside your cohort. Let’s break these differences down further below:
Many DTP and CDT studentships are advertised with a pre-defined project, so the research question is set by the supervisors or the partnership. Others, particularly in the social sciences and arts and humanities, let you propose your own project within the partnership's research themes. Either way, you'll be working within the framework of a wider funded programme, rather than on an entirely independent proposal as you might with a self-funded PhD.
DTPs give less choice than in a traditional PhD. However, it's worth noting that although a self-funded PhD offers you more freedom with your proposal, the finished thesis rarely stays close to the original question.
If you are set on a particular subject, perhaps a self-funded PhD is the best route for you. However, if you’re open to a wider topic within a set field and looking for a framework to research within, it would be worthwhile exploring a DTP.
Doctoral training in the UK is mainly funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which is made up of seven Research Councils, along with Innovate UK and Research England. The Research Councils are grouped by subject area, and it's worth spending some time checking through their individual sites for guides and links to doctoral training programme funding.
UKRI has simplified its doctoral training funding into two main types: Doctoral Landscape Awards and Doctoral Focal Awards. For BBSRC and NERC, Doctoral Landscape Awards replaced the previous Doctoral Training Partnerships, with the first students starting in October 2025. The ESRC still funds Doctoral Training Partnerships. You'll see all of these names in PhD adverts, but they work in a similar way: funded studentships, recruited in cohorts, with training alongside your research.
As a guide, a funded doctoral training studentship usually lasts 3.5 to 4 years. Some, particularly in the social sciences, follow a '1+3' model: a one-year research Masters followed by a three-year PhD. Check the length in each advert, as it varies between programmes.
It’s worth considering that while this can be longer than a standard 3-year PhD, DTPs are fully funded. Do consider whether the additional time will affect your future plans.
On a Doctoral Training Programme, you would build your research skill and methods through a mixture of lectures, seminars, symposia, and practical sessions. Centres for Doctoral Training work together with the university’s Graduate School to prepare students for transferable skills such as qualitative and quantitative research methods and communication. These skills will carry you through the next three years and beyond academia. You will have the opportunity to focus on weak spots you didn't focus on in your undergraduate degree.
As universities recruit several DTP candidates each year, you will find that the first year cohort of researchers all train at the same time. This allows the university to really nurture you as a new researcher. You'll be doing this while training with peers.
Doctoral Training Programmes usually pay your tuition fees directly to the university and give you a tax-free stipend for living costs, so there is less administration for you. From 1 October 2026, the UKRI minimum stipend is £21,805 a year (£23,805 in London), and the UKRI fee level for 2026/27 is £5,238. Because of the financial support, applying to DTPs is a highly competitive process.
International students can apply for UKRI-funded studentships, which can go to up to 30% of a programme's places. The award usually covers only the home fee rate, so check how the international fee difference will be paid.
If you're applying to a DTP, you will be expected to submit an application form and CV, as well as sit an interview and a written or practical test. Interviews can vary from being with an individual to a large panel. It’s important to prepare for every interview of course! But if you're applying to a DTP, it’s worthwhile spending some time rehearsing interviews with a group of friends and working on the transitions between a written test and an interview, so that you're not under pressure on the interview day.
A quick summary:
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Last updated: 30 October 2026
