Information for Supervisors

Information for supervisors

NorthWestBio (NWB) has grown from the recognition of potential synergy among the complementary research communities from the partner institutions. The northwest of the UK is a key region for life sciences, and our new DTP will fill a regional shortfall in studentship training and provision and create a new doctoral training environment that will deliver sector-ready, world-class graduates. 

The overarching theme of the program is sustainability, and it is broken into four main research themes:

• Underpinning bioscience discovery
• Animal biology in health and disease
• Plant health, resilience, yield and growth
• Understanding pathogens, from molecules to phenotypes

It is expected that the focus of each PhD project will fall into one of these themes.  

Two important core elements of the partnership are that (i) we recognise that key underpinning research strengths need not be housed in traditional ‘biological sciences’ arenas, and (ii) we seek to foster joint projects between the partners (see more below).  Further, NWB is fully focused on student training, career development and building of skills and experience. Supervisors will be expected to participate in NWB info-session prior to proposing projects, and in supervisor induction sessions prior to commencing supervision.

Collaboration is key for our proposed projects, and it is expected that each project will have a supervisory team from at least two partners. We encourage supervisors to think creatively about how collaborations could form, e.g., bringing your technology or skills (such as imaging, artificial intelligence) to bear on a biological problem asked by a colleague.

We value the professional development of our Supervisory Teams.  In March 2024 all supervisors were invited to a training, development and networking session at Queens University Belfast.