The Alan Turing Institute Enrichment Scheme

The Enrichment scheme offers students currently enrolled on a doctoral programme at a UK university the opportunity to join us for up to 12 months at the Turing. Students continue their PhD in conjunction with their current supervisor, while enriching their research and making new collaborations during their time at the Institute.

Enrichment places are offered for 6, 9, or 12 months with start dates in October 2020 and January 2021. While on placement students are expected to work out of the Turing offices in the British Library. To support relocation and travel costs the award provides either a stipend top-up and/or expenses allowance for eligible students.

This year the Turing will be welcoming more students than ever before with up to 50 placements on offer.

Application Process

Applications for the 2020/21 Enrichment scheme are now open. Apply now through Flexigrant. 

The application process is described in full on the Enrichment scheme website.

Deadlines for applications is 21st January 2020.

Why join the Turing?

The Enrichment scheme has been designed to give students undertaking a PhD the opportunity to support and enhance their current research by accessing the facilities and opportunities available at The Alan Turing Institute. Students usually join us in their second or third years to further the work they are undertaking for their research project and support the completion of the PhD.

Collaborate

Enrichment students have the opportunity to find new collaborators for their research project, or to start a collaboration on something related to their field. Upon starting a placement students join a cohort from across the UK, as well as the range of researchers already active at the Turing.

Learn and apply new methodologies

We encourage our Enrichment students to learn new techniques to enrich their research while undertaking their placement. Learning is supported through training events as well as the support of our in-house research software engineering team.

Develop research independence

The Enrichment placement is also an opportunity for doctoral candidates to develop some research independence as they progress in their studies. The inspiration from learning and collaboration may prompt new ideas that can be further developed in the future.

An ethical core

Considering the ethical implications of research is a core part of all the work at the Turing. All Turing students are encouraged to examine the ethical issues in their own projects and discuss them with others. Students are encouraged to engage with the Turing Ethics Committee, as well as contributing to ongoing discussions regarding fairness and transparency through projects such as The Turing Way, our open source guide and gold-standard in developing reproducible data science projects.

Further benefits of the Enrichment scheme include:

  • Stipend top up to bring the student’s existing annual stipend in line with Turing stipend (expected maximum £7,000) and/or travel allowance.
  • Full induction to the Turing community and access to training throughout the year.
  • Ability to apply for an Enrichment conference fund award of up to £400 to present on research undertaken at the Turing.
  • Access to a range of events, seminars, reading groups, and workshops delivered by leaders in research, government, and industry – see a selection of what is happening at the Institute on our events pages.
  • Opportunities to collaborate on Turing research projects.
  • High spec laptop for the duration of your placement and support from our dedicated Research Engineering Team.
  • Ability to apply for Turing computing resource including Azure cloud credits. 

You can find out more about the support available for students here. 

Who the Turing looking for?

There is no typical Turing student. We welcome applications from students who will embrace the opportunity to enrich their own research through the Turing environment. We encourage applications from a broad range of academic disciplines and backgrounds, especially those whose research spans multiple disciplines and applications and aligns with the Institute’s research areas. Students should consider how they would best utilise a placement at the Turing to support their current research and contribute to their PhD work and what they feel they could contribute to our academic and broader community and engage with others.

Students will remain enrolled at their university while they are based at the Turing in London and must have the support of their supervisor and university to study away.

For full details of eligibility and assessment criteria please review the Call Document and FAQs.

We will be running two free information events for students and their supervisors. Please register in advance to secure your place. Events will be running on the following days:

Further information

More information is available from:

Ann Enticknap, University Liaison Manager: ann.enticknap@admin.cam.ac.uk

The Alan Turing Institute: https://www.turing.ac.uk/work-turing/studentships