About Us

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK’s largest funder of research on economic, social, behavioural and human data science. LSE ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) is one of ESRC’s 15 doctoral training partnerships.

The core function of a DTP is to award and administer postgraduate research studentships, to support multi-disciplinarily activities, and to provide advanced professional support to Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded students.

The LSE ESRC DTP is a single institution DTP and has been in existence since 2011, when LSE first received ESRC doctoral training grant funding. Our first grant supported our first six cohorts, who were admitted between October 2011 and October 2016. Our second grant funded six cohorts, who were admitted between 2017 and October 2022. This was later extended for a further one cohort in response to the pandemic, covering the entry cohorts for October 2023.

LSE has received renewed funding for a further five entry cohorts. Our first new cohort arrived in October 2024. From this page here you can find a profile of each student and their research interests.

Our doctoral training grant allows us to offer a minimum of 20 studentships per year in a wide variety of programmes, spread across most LSE departments. Six of these are reserved, each year, for ESRC strategic steer topics in advanced quantitative methods and data skills. Across the period of our current grant, many of our studentships will also be delivered jointly and collaboratively with non-academic organisations. Where these are available, they will be advertised on this page, and via the hosting department.

We offer studentships of varying types and durations, and can also provide support for pre-requisite postgraduate taught programmes, and allocate all of our studentships according our prospective researchers’ development needs, based on their submitted admissions applications. You can find information about our award types here.

LSE ESRC DTP Collaborative Steer Studentships are projects developed through partnerships between academic and non-academic organisations. For information on Collaborative Studentships please follow the links to individual opportunities provided in the accordion on the ESRC Studentships webpage.

You can find information about graduate study at LSE, including available programmes, through LSE Graduate Admissions. Their webpages include programme overviews, videos and details of student services.

Programmes which are eligible for our funding will note this on specifically on their prospectus page. You can also find a full list of programmes eligible for our funding here. To apply, you need only submit an application for admission via LSE Graduate Admissions. You can find specific information about how to apply here. There is no separate admissions process. Initial enquiries about application mechanisms should be directed to Graduate Admissions.

LSE ESRC DTP studentships are not the same as LSE PhD studentships and London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP) studentships. For example, all LSE PhD departments are eligible for LSE PhD studentships, and many are eligible for ESRC DTP studentships, but only a few are eligible for LAHP studentships. You can find out about the specific benefits of DTP studentships here.

If you have questions about the differences between these studentships, please check the relevant information pages. If you have questions about studentship entitlements, please contact the LSE Financial Support Office, who administer the DTP’s studentships on our behalf.

ESRC published two key documents which set out supervisors’ responsibilities. These are the ESRC postgraduate training and development guidelines, and the ESRC Postgraduate Funding Guide.

DTP Governance is over seen by the DTP Management Committee which meets termly (three times a year).

It comprises four sub-committees: Equality Diversity Inclusion (EDI), Finance and data, Operational and Training. The EDI and Finance and data sub-committees meet once a term whilst the Operational and training sub-committees meet every month.

The DTP Management Committee comprises of the following members:

Professor Bingchun Meng, DTP Director

Professor Patrick Sturgis, DTP Deputy Director and Training Lead

Dr Pete Mills, DTP Manager

Kirsty Rawlings, Research Partnerships Manager

Dr Joe Macdonald, Research Partnerships Officer

Dr David Tiedemann, PhD Academy Assistant Manager (Research in Practice)

Dr Raphael Susewind, Associate Professor of Quality Methods (Research in Practice)

Dr Zach Dickson, LSE Fellow in Quantitative Methodology (Research in Practice)

James Ringer, Head of Scholarships and Financial Support

Pam Rolfe, Deputy Head of Scholarships and Financial Support

Claudia Grant, Scholarships and Financial Support Officer

If you are a current student and have a query related to your funding, or anything else finance related, please contact FSO through their equiry form.

If you are a prospective student, please contact graduate admissions here. The DTP team are unable to answer any questions regarding applications for ESRC awards.

ESRC contact details can be found on their website here.

For all other queries please contact phdacademy@lse.ac.uk.

The PhD Academy offers wellbeing support for current students. Please find out more here.

LSE Graduate Admissions Webpage

Graduate Admissions Contact Details