For 2027/28 entry, ACCE+ DLA are introducing a Widening Participation aspect to candidate recruitment, in order to achieve diversity in its PhD student cohorts. In particular, the programme would like to promote fairer access to formal interview, for suitably qualified candidates from relevant groups. UKRI (the funder) have evidenced that participation in PhD programmes is disproportionately low from UK-based Black student and UK-based students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Note that this only applies to home students, not international students.
The scheme creates an additional opportunity where an eligible candidate is already within the academically suitable pool. It does not require a positive-action or WP candidate to be identified for every project and does not permit academic standards to be lowered in order to identify such a candidate.
The process ensures that there is a separation of widening participation information and the academic assessment of ACCE+ DLA candidates by project primary supervisors.
The process will be reviewed following completion of the 2027/28 recruitment round.
Candidate application process
Candidates apply to ACCE+ DLA for pre-approved studentship projects. In response to data from UKRI regarding diversity of candidates awarded PhD studentships (including from NERC) programmes, for 2027/28 entry candidates will be asked to self-declare if they meet any of three WP criteria below:
- Candidate comes from a home where neither parent/guardian attended university, or
- Candidate comes from a minority ethnic background relative to the UK population (a non-white background), or
- Candidate has been in receipt of widening participation support at or prior to attending their first degree.
Home candidates only will be asked to tick a box to confirm if they meet any of the above criteria as part of their application form.
Candidates are not permitted to contact the project primary supervisor at this stage – the purpose of this is to try to eliminate supervisors coaching candidates who have access to the supervisor, and to level the playing field at this stage for all candidates as far as possible.
Stage 1
All applications are anonymised on receipt (removing name and personal details, the candidate’s previous institution/s of study and the widening participation answer).
Following anonymisation, each project primary supervisor receives a pack with the candidate applications to their project (this includes both home and international candidates). Supervisors are asked to review the applications and select up to five candidates to longlist for the project. A rubric is available for supervisors to rank their candidates against.
At the longlist stage, supervisors will not have access to the WP information for candidates, and will make their selection of five longlist candidates without this information . All selected candidates should meet the required academic standard and be suitable for consideration for a formal interview.
Stage 2
Supervisors will, after this point, be able to meet with their longlisted candidates, to discuss the project. Please note that this contact will not take the form of an interview; the meetings should aim to discuss the projects, explore research potential and the relevant skills candidates may have, as well as their alignment with the research environment.
Stage 3
Following these meetings, and without being given the WP information for the candidates, supervisors will select a maximum of five appointable candidates to be considered by the ACCE Management Board for an interview. The supervisor will submit a brief rationale for their selections.
Rules for candidate selection:
- If the highest-ranked candidate nominated for a project is also a WP candidate (information available to the Management Board members), that individual counts as both the top-ranked and WP candidate, and only that candidate is considered by the Management Board for interview for that project
- If the highest-ranked candidate nominated for a project is not WP, the highest-ranked WP candidate from the remaining ranked pool can also be selected, to make a total of two candidates nominated for an interview for that project.
Where none of the candidates nominated by a supervisor meet the criteria for the positive-action or widening-participation measure, the measure will not be applied for that project and the Management Board will select the candidate to progress to interview through the standard process (i.e. the supervisor’s highest ranked nominated candidate). The positive-action/widening-participation measure will not be used to progress a candidate who has not first been assessed by the supervisor as eligible, suitably qualified for the PhD and suitable for consideration for formal interview.
Stage 4
The ACCE+ DLA Management Board will review the longlisted candidates and confirm a shortlist of candidates who will be invited for a formal interview. As part of this process, the Management Board will have access to the candidates’ WP information, and considers whether the approved widening-participation provision applies. Normally the first choice candidate will always be invited to interview (unless ineligible in some way); the second choice candidate may or may not be invited to interview.
Note that candidates nominated by their supervisor are not guaranteed to be invited for interview, and candidates invited to interview are not guaranteed to be offered a funded studentship.
Interviews
All candidates invited to interview, regardless of whether selected as a first or second choice candidate by the supervisor or of their WP status, will be interviewed against the same published assessment rubric.