York - ESRC Standard Research Transition Standard Quota DTG

This grant funds doctoral training partnerships, not a specific research project. It provides the financial and institutional framework for postgraduate students to pursue PhDs across a range of topics in education and skills. The problem it addresses is structural: without dedicated funding streams, talented early-career researchers cannot afford to undertake the extended, intensive training needed to become independent academics or highly skilled professionals. The gap it fills is the need for a pipeline of qualified people who can generate new knowledge and apply advanced analytical methods to complex social questions. If the training succeeds, the impact is indirect but long-lasting. The students supported by this grant will go on to produce research that could reshape how schools teach, how employers train workers, or how policymakers design apprenticeship systems. More broadly, they will enter universities, think tanks, government departments, and private-sector roles where their expertise informs decisions on everything from classroom technology to national skills strategies. This is fundamentally a capacity-building investment. It does not promise a single breakthrough. Instead, it ensures that the next generation of researchers in education and skills exists at all.