UCL, Bloomsbury and East London Doctoral Training Partnership

The UK Research Councils are funding a new network of universities to train the next generation of social scientists through a Doctoral Training Partnership led by University College London, Bloomsbury and East London. This matters because the UK needs skilled researchers who can tackle complex social and economic challenges—from inequality and public health to climate adaptation and digital transformation. Without coordinated, high-quality doctoral training, the country risks losing its capacity to produce evidence that informs policy and improves lives. This partnership pools expertise across institutions to give PhD students access to a broader range of supervisors, methods, and real-world research settings than any single university could offer alone. If successful, this programme will produce hundreds of trained researchers over several years. Their work could influence how governments design welfare systems, how schools address attainment gaps, or how businesses adapt to technological change. The impact is indirect but systemic: better-trained researchers mean better evidence, and better evidence means more effective public spending and policy decisions. This is a long-term investment in the people who will generate the knowledge that keeps public services, industries, and communities functioning well.