Getting to know the SWDTP

If you are a colleague who is new to the SWDTP, welcome! Getting to know the SWDTP is a series of summaries and key documents you should read to help you get to grips with our processes.

Overview

The SWDTP is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and is formed of eight South-West universities – The Universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, West of England, Bath Spa, Bournemouth and Plymouth Marjon.

We offer PhD students funding (and a stipend) to study in one of 18 subject pathways, and we also run the competition for ESRC postdoctoral fellowships. Our purpose is to enhance doctoral training in the social sciences across our 8 partner universities. This includes doctoral training for PGRs, who are not our grantees but are associated with departments that belong to one of our 18 pathways. We support PGRs, ECRs, and academic communities across the Southwest by coordinating a range of training and development opportunities.

The work of the SWDTP hub team is supported by colleagues across our eight partner institutions. The Partnership is governed by our Academic Advisory Board (AAB) and Management Board (MB). Operationally, our Institutional Academic Leads, Pathway Leads and Institutional Coordinators ensure the delivery of our processes and play important roles to bridge us with their local communities.

If you supervise an SWDTP student…

The ESRC expects DTPs to deliver mandatory supervisor training around our core processes, which this series represents. To complete this process, please follow the link at the end of this series of pages to take a quiz. This is applicable to colleagues who are supervising an SWDTP student for the first time since the 2024/25 academic year.

We are also in the early stages of offering supervisor training opportunities which we hope you will find useful for your own professional development. Read on to learn more about these.