Today we can announce the Graduate School of the National Oceanography Centre Southampton’s (GSNOCS) participation in a new, NERC co-funded £8 million Centre for Doctoral Training in geological and environmental research relevant to the oil and gas sector (see the full press announcement). As a consequence we have three funded PhD studentships on offer every year for the next three years. Projects eligible for this funding can be found at the GSNOCS Oil & Gas CDT projects page. The students will be part of a wider educational consortium, led by Heriot-Watt and involving a further 16 institutions across which an additional twenty-seven PhD’s are also being advertised today, see www.pet.hw.ac.uk/research/nerc-cdt-oil-gas-academic-partnership.htm for details.

These studentships represent an excellent post-graduate experience as in addition to the specific challenges of the individual research projects the students will also undertake a 20-week high-quality training package. This will include a cross-consortium teaching programme, conferences and fieldtrips for the entire CDT cohort as well as the potential for industry placements.