Sustaining Excellence Scholarships for Employment-based PhD

The College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) at University College Cork offers Sustaining Excellence Scholarships within an Employment-based PhD programme. This is a collaborative arrangement between UCC, the PhD candidate and their employer. Up to 5 scholarships are available to PhD students registered in the Employment-based PhD programme in the College of SEFS. The scholarships fund tuition fees plus €5,000 per annum for associated research, for the duration of each PhD, with maximum registration for 4 years (full-time) or 6 years (part-time). An Employment-based PhD is a PhD research project undertaken by a PhD candidate who is in employment. The PhD candidate remains a salaried employee with their employer and is concurrently registered as a PhD student at UCC for the duration of the PhD project. The employment partner can be a healthcare organisation, a business, company/industry, higher education institution, registered charity, social, cultural or not-for-profit civic organisation or semi-state commercial organisation. The employment partner must be financially independent of the University and provide supports such as facilities relevant to the PhD project, a mentor/supervisor to work with academic supervisors at UCC, and dedicated research time for their employee. The PhD research project can be within any research field in the College of SEFS, provided that the project's research quality and direct or indirect short- or long-term research significance and impact can be argued convincingly. PhD candidates undertake an equivalent student workload of 90 ECTS credits for each calendar year of full-time research, or proportional equivalent for part-time students. The employment partner must finance the PhD candidate's salary while the scholarship covers registration fees and research costs.