Collaboration In Training and Innovation for Growing, Evolving and Networked Societies

The Collaboration in Training and Innovation for Growing, Evolving and Networked Societies (CITI-GENS) Doctoral Programme at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) will recruit and train 20 outstanding international researchers over a 60-month period. During this time, they will be transformed into a professional and skilled cohort addressing global challenges aligned to the themes of the Belfast Region City Deal innovation ecosystem: Information Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, Life Sciences and the Creative Industries. In seeking to address societal challenges in new ways and with new technologies, the CITI-GENS ESRs will engage with methodologies at the forefront of current practice in innovation, notably design thinking. Adopting the 3i approach, ESRs chosen for CITI-GENS will combine their advanced disciplinary excellence with capacity for genuinely interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international quality research involving the capacities of QUB and 25 non-HEI partners. The CITI-GENS programme has been developed on the basis that future societal challenges will emerge across rather than within economic and social sectors, requiring new technologies that are emerging or not yet developed, and which outpace developments in social structures and conventions. This is the key value of CITI-GENS: it demands that successful applicants are characterised by openness to innovation, pioneer thinking and creativity. These qualities will be nourished by means of a personalised training package for each ESR and through a range of cohort leadership and development opportunities within our award-winning Graduate School. CITI-GENS research findings will be disseminated and communicated to different stakeholders though a wide variety of channels. The proposed CITI-GENS DP will be managed through a bespoke coordination and oversight system in a University with an established reputation for its cross-disciplinary doctoral training and knowledge transfer activities.