Edinburgh - ESRC Standard Research Transition Standard Quota DTG

This grant funds doctoral training partnerships across UK universities, supporting postgraduate students in the social sciences. The Research Councils provide this funding to ensure a steady pipeline of skilled researchers who can address complex societal challenges. Without structured training programmes, the UK risks losing expertise in areas that depend on deep understanding of human behaviour, institutions, and economies. This grant fills the gap between individual PhD projects and the need for coordinated, high-quality training across multiple institutions. If successful, these partnerships will produce researchers equipped to inform policy on education, labour markets, public services, and social inequality. The impact is indirect but systemic: better-trained social scientists feed into government, charities, and businesses, improving decisions that affect how schools operate, how welfare systems function, and how communities adapt to change. The training itself is fundamental—it builds the intellectual infrastructure for evidence-based policy, rather than delivering a specific product or technology. Past investments in similar doctoral training have led to influential studies on early childhood education, poverty dynamics, and economic forecasting, demonstrating how foundational research capacity eventually shapes everyday life.