Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships
Background
Research topics
Applying for a partnership
Find out more
Background
The Library has been successful in applying for a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) award from the AHRC. This award covers six doctoral studentships each year for three years, from 2013-2016. Each studentship will be jointly supervised by a member of the British Library curatorial staff and an academic from a UK Higher Education Institution, as with the existing CDA scheme. The HEI will administer the studentship, receiving funds from the AHRC for fees and to cover the student’s maintenance. The British Library will provide additional financial support to cover travel and related costs in carrying out research of up to £1,000 a year.
Following internal consultation and competition, we have identified nine potential research areas which are aligned to the strategic aims of the British Library and will bring mutual benefits to both the successful student and to the Library’s collections and their users. In line with AHRC guidelines, they have capacity for the student to make an original contribution to knowledge, and engage with ongoing scholarly debates, in a field or fields within the AHRC remit. Proposals were judged against the following criteria:
- Enables the British Library to make a unique difference through the relevance of our expertise and our collections
- Has potential for transformational change in research
- Contributes to the development of best practice (e.g. technical standards for digital manuscripts or ethical standards for dealing with cultural property)
- Addresses stewardship considerations for the collection
- Contributes to internal capacity building
- Displays interdisciplinarity
- Creates outcomes which are scalable to wider user groups
Research topics
The selected areas are as follows, please click for a description:
Exploration and Geopolitics in the Polar Regions - PDF format 14.01 KB
Music, print and culture in the 16th century - PDF format 13.99 KB
British film music of the twentieth century - PDF format 12.85 KB
Digital transformations in medieval illuminated manuscripts - PDF format 14.07 KB
Provincial Shakespeare Performance - PDF format 13.02 KB
Literary Translation - Genre, Process and Collaboration - PDF format 13.31 KB
Black British Poetry in Performance - PDF format 12.84 KB
West Africa - Cultures of the Word - PDF format 34.73 KB
Applying for a partnership
We recently invited applications from UK HEIs to work with us on one or more of these proposed topics, using the application form below. The deadline for receiving applications was Friday 22 March 2013. We will then select the six proposals with the strongest HEI applications to start in the next academic year, commencing October 2013. HEI applications will be assessed according to the proposed academic supervisor’s research interests and expertise, the ability of the proposed Department to support the student, and evidence of previous successful collaboration with non-HEI partners.
The studentships will then be further developed in collaboration with the successful academic partner in each case before being advertised to students in April. The successful student will contribute to the final agreed research topic.
A partnership agreement will be drawn up jointly by the British Library supervisor and the academic supervisor, in line with AHRC guidance available on page 6 of the CDA Scheme Guidance (PDF).
Further detail on the CDP and CDA schemes is available from the AHRC website.
Find out more
Applications are now closed for this year’s scheme. We will announce successful institutions shortly. If you have any questions about working in collaboration with the Library, please email us at HigherEducation@bl.uk
