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Doctoral training partnerships

The Open University is proud be a member of a number of Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) and Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) across a variety of areas of research excellence.

DTPs and CDTs provide a structured training environment for cohorts of students who are studying research degrees within disciplinary or thematically cognate areas.

Pooling our experience and resources with other universities, research organisations and industry partners, we are developing the research leaders of the future, equipping them with the skills and knowledge to work at the cutting edge of research to address real world problems.

Why partner with the OU?

  • Widening participation and social justice: The OU brings a diverse range of students from a variety of backgrounds and experiences.
  • Multidisciplinary success: We know how to facilitate co-supervision, shared supervisions and DTPs across faculties and institutions.
  • Cohort-building experience: We have run long lasting DTP/CDT partnerships and other collaborations.
  • Comprehensive training opportunities: Partnership students get access to the OU Graduate School’s unique core training programme (face-to-face, streamed and recorded) and wide-ranging online doctoral training resources.

The OU: partner with a pioneer

The Open University is a truly national teaching and research university with a mission to be ‘open to people, places, methods and ideas’.

We are a world leader in open learning, currently serving around 174,000 students on our taught courses and many millions of learners through our television productions and extensive web presence.

The OU has a strong, enduring collaboration with the BBC based on academic input into programming and co-funding/co-production across television, radio and internet.

The OU partners with FutureLearn, a wholly-owned subsidiary and which is the leading social learning platform, formed in December 2012. It is now the largest online learning platform in Europe with over eight million people signed up worldwide. It delivers courses from over 150 leading universities and cultural institutions across the globe.

Visit our research degree prospectus to see more about our current partners and how to apply for a studentship.

Funded studentships are advertised on our jobs page.