Frequently Asked Questions

Candidates will be shortlisted based on the essential and desirable criteria included in the application. It is essential that you address how you meet all outlined criteria in your application.   

Applicants choose which projects they are interested in. All candidates are welcome to apply for any of the available projects and the strongest applicants will be recruited. Applicants must contact the supervisor of their preferred project/s to discuss them (we expect you to have contacted the supervisor of your preferred project before you apply). Contact details are available on the programme website. Only one candidate per project will be recruited. Applicants will be ranked after interview. The available projects will be updated every year. Each university has a maximum number of fellowships to offer each year. 
You may only submit a final application for one project.

If successful, you will be offered a fellowship at a particular institution to do the specific project you have applied for. We do not expect complete changes of project topic or focus except in cases of exceptional unavoidable circumstances.

Projects must fall within one of our 5 themes, with a clear focus on mental health and neurosciences. Therefore, we expect our trainees to select a project (and associated supervisor/s) from our list. As with any PhD, there is flexibility within most projects to tailor them to an individual’s interests and so there is scope to modify and expand on these project proposals in collaboration with the supervisors.  

Please refer to the DTP themes and approaches pages on our website. You will find relevant projects within each theme. You can contact the supervisors directly and discuss with them your areas of research interest. You can also contact relevant leads for each theme, and they will be able to signpost you to the most relevant supervisors.  

You will initially be choosing a project from those identified on the website, so you will not need to submit a research proposal as part of the expression of interest stage.
If invited to submit a full application you will be asked to go into detail about your proposed project and the supervisory team in more detail (max 1000 words). It is expected that you will discuss your application with your supervisor prior to submitting. 

No, you can apply to conduct the PhD at any of the four institutions and this should be determined by how your research interests align with the supervisors/projects at the different universities.

Yes dentists are included as healthcare professionals. You must be registered with a national professional regulatory body. 

We can only accept applications from healthcare professionals who are fully qualified (except for medical professionals – see separate eligibility requirements) and have full registration with their statutory regulator (e.g., HCPC, NMC, etc.).

If you complete your training by the programme start date you are not eligible to apply. The scheme is for individuals in a Training Programme registered by the UK or Republic of Ireland. Medical applicants are welcome from all medical and surgical specialities (including General Practice) and will be doctors in training (holding a National Training Number). Individuals who have completed specialist training are not eligible.

Medical applicants should hold a National Training Number and so SAS doctors are not eligible to apply.

Applications are welcome from GPs who have completed their training (post-CCT) and are within the first 4 years post-CCT (full-time equivalent), provided they are fully registered with their professional body in the UK/Ireland.  

The scheme is for individuals in a Training Programme registered by the UK or Republic of Ireland. Individuals who have completed specialist training are not eligible.

Applicants from non-medical clinical disciplines must have a minimum of 2 years clinical experience after completing all of their professional training.  

Yes, only for psychotherapists, CBT therapists and Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners, because they are not covered by HCPC. However, they need full accreditation with the BABCP. All ‘Practitioner Psychologists’ need to be HCPC registered.

Clinical Research Practitioners who are on the CRP Accredited Register are eligible to apply as healthcare scientists.

The programme is open to anyone who has worked or is working in the NHS. The key criterion is that you must be a current UK/ROI-registered healthcare professional.

Trainee psychologists are ineligible for the DTP unfortunately.

No, we will expect you to start with the cohort in the year they apply. We will make an exception only in some exceptional cases.

This is based on your current NHS contract. The PhD programme is only buying out your time, so no there will be no change to your current contract (but only changes to your job plan). We expect NHS Trusts to enable you to resume your role once you have completed the PhD. 

For medics this will be based on your University contract.

More information for Wellcome funded students can be found here.

The 20% clinical work: this time has been allocated to ensure (i) that the healthcare professionals can keep their clinical/professional registration open/active while they are doing their PhD; (ii) to enable a smooth transition/translation of their research into clinical practice – therefore, we would expect that the clinical activity is related to the PhD student’s research. 

We expect all our PhD students to be based in the Midlands for the duration of their PhDs, as we anticipate that they will be working in one of our NHS Trusts in the Midlands. We would also expect our PhD students to attend in-person training sessions, so living in the Midlands will make this easier.

However, in some cases we can make exceptions if students live outside the Midlands, but they must be in close proximity to the university they are registered with.  

The restrictions on clinical work apply to paid time in the day, so you can, in principle, work in out of hours in addition but only if it does not interfere with your daytime work and research (for example, overnight out of hours shifts before a working day would not be acceptable).  

While some remote working will likely be possible, depending on your host institution arrangements, we expect applicants to spend a reasonable amount of time at their host institution to participate in any required face to face training and to take advantage of informal learning and collaboration opportunities.  

Teaching and training will be across the participating universities. As well as programme training, the scholars will be expected to undertake generic skills training in their home institution.