What is an EPSRC Industrial CASE Award?
An EPSRC Industrial CASE award enables a company to define a research project and work on it in partnership with an academic partner of their choice and a postgraduate student. The student carries out much of the necessary research and must spend at least three months in this way on the company's premises. The company is required to make a financial contribution.
Each year the Integrated Products Manufacturing Knowledge Transfer Network has a number of opportunities to allocate Ph.D. Funding through the EPSRC Industrial CASE Scheme. This year we have three awards to allocate directly. As in previous years we will give priority to applications with a nominated student and support from a company. Although the closing date for applications is September 5th 2008, we expect to have allocated our three awards much sooner than this date. We therefore encourage potential applicants to contact us as soon as possible.
As in previous years, a central pool of awards has also been offered by the EPSRC. Bids into this pool have been submitted on the EPSRC Pool Application form by the 31st May 2008. We are able to endorse high quality applications into the pool with a letter of support, so strongly encourage potential applicants to contact us to discuss details of the project. The pool application process will be particularly of interest to applicants who have a company and project in place, but no named research student.. Results of the pool application process will be announced by EPSRC in October 2008. As awards must be taken up with a student by 31st October 2009, this effectively gives a year to recruit a suitable research student.
We strongly encourage potential applicants to register their interest in EPSRC industrial CASE awards allocated by the Integrated Products Manufacturing KTN by logging in to our website (if you are not already logged in) and editing your registration details. Simply tick the 'EPSRC Industrial CASE awards' tick box in the interests section of the registration form and finish by clicking the 'submit' button. We will then be able to keep you up to date with details of the application process, which may change from year to year.
If you haven't already registered, you will need to do so before you can sign up for e-alerts on our online registration form.
All announcements from the Integrated Products Manufacturing KTN relating to EPSRC Industrial CASE awards are also posted on our RSS news feed.
Track record of Industrial CASE
The KTN has successfully allocated 40 awards over the past ten years to 14 Universities and 30 companies (of which 29 were SMEs). Preference has always been made to new partnerships; although multiple awards to the same organisation have been allocated when a new partnership was supported.
Our Allocation process
The KTN operates a competitive “first past the post” allocation process and encourages telephone and email enquiries by potential applicants. This process provides an initial screening and ensures a good match to EPSRC and KTN criteria, without excessive bureaucracy. Applicants are requested to submit by email details of the academic, company name, company type, and research student name along with a description of the project. We will only consider applications that align with the research themes defined in the EPSRC delivery plan and overlap well with the technical domain of this KTN. Given the broad underpinning nature of integrated products this dual requirement is not unduly restrictive. Good quality proposals that do not overlap well with this KTN domain but meet EPSRC criteria will be, with the applicants permission, forwarded to other agents for possible allocation.
The final allocation decision is made by Director of the KTN, with consultation from the executive team, normally within 24 hours of receipt of an application email. As proof of allocation we will release an application form with a unique EPSRC allocation number to the successful applicant, and request a courtesy copy of the signed documentation for our files. The completed and signed application form is submitted to EPSRC by the recipient of the award in the usual manner.
Application Form
To access the Industrial CASE Application Form (in Microsoft Word Format), please click the following link:
Industrial CASE Application Form
Further Information
For further information about Ph.D. studentships available through us, please contact Paul J. Palmer.