The Universities of Sheffield, Leeds and York have been awarded a share of £79 million to train the next generation of researchers to tackle major health problems facing people in the North of England and around the world.

The Discovery Medicine North (DiMeN) partnership builds on strong and longstanding collaborative links with the Universities of Sheffield, Newcastle, Liverpool and Leeds, and now also includes the University of York.

This new Medical Research Council (MRC) investment will provide novel research and training opportunities across healthcare priority areas, including infectious disease, antibiotic resistance, cancer, and diseases of aging.

The partnership will recruit 120 PhD students over the next three years, supporting talented scientists of the future and collaborative research projects across the North of England. Each University is providing generous matched-funding to enable this investment and the partnership will generate exciting opportunities to work with industry partners for patient benefit.

Professor Stephen Renshaw, Sir Arthur Hall Professor of Medicine at the University of Sheffield and Director of the MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Programme, said: “The increased number of students coming to the partnership is a real indication of the strength of research and research training within DiMeN. 

“We are privileged to have such strong research across the five institutions and to be able to tap into so much passion for postgraduate research training.”

Investment in doctoral training is a key component of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the MRC’s overarching vision to develop research talent and skills. 

For more information about how MRC supports doctoral training, please visit the UKRI website