Universities in the East partner to form social sciences research hub
It's led by the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin, in partnership with the University of Suffolk and Bedfordshire
A number of universities across the East of England are joining forces to create a social sciences research centre.
Led by the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University, the project has been supported by partners at the University of Suffolk and the University of Bedfordshire.
The partnership is an opportunity for a wide engagement with the health and social care sector, as well as promote equality and increase access to further education into social sciences research.
"...addressing key societal challenges so issues around health and wellbeing and inequality."
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the CAM Doctoral Training Partnership has the aim of broadening avenues into postgraduate education for students from under-represented backgrounds.
Director of the Institute of Applied Social Research at the University of Bedfordshire, Professor Emily Munro, said: "We're really keen to develop interdisciplinary research addressing key societal challenges so issues around health and wellbeing and inequality."
"It's really about developing research expertise across the region."
"...the research and the training they're receiving really helps have real-world impact and address regional challenges."
Although the objective is to develop social science research across the East, the main focus is on the researchers and themselves and how best they can apply their work.
Pr Munro said: "It's training the next generation of researchers to undertake research that has an impact and informs and influences policy and practise, both regionally but also more broadly across the country, with international relevance too."
"It offers opportunities for funded PhDs and also a whole set of activities which really build research capacity."
Pr Munro told Greatest Hits Radio that the key focus for the centre is to "bring them together with policy-makers and health and social care providers so that the research and the training they're receiving really helps have real-world impact and address regional challenges."
Although the University of Bedfordshire currently is only a partner, there are hopes for the University to enrol its own PhD students into the programme from the start of the next academic year.