We are delighted to announce that ACCE+ has been awarded funds from NERC to recruit PhD students from October 2025, via a Doctoral Landscape Award (DLA)! ACCE+ stands for Addressing the Challenges of Changing Environments.
ACCE+ combines world-class research from across the NERC remit with end-user partner organisations from the public and private sectors to deliver a training programme that will develop motivated, confident PhD students performing outstanding, distinctive research. ACCE+ will provide doctoral graduates that not only fill identified sector-wide skills gaps but who are also equipped to understand, communicate, and address challenges associated with the nature, causes, and consequences of changes in the natural environment occurring at all scales.
ACCE+ is a partnership built on excellent research capability, with a proven track record of innovative training that will take bold steps to enhance doctoral training even further. It builds on the highly successful ACCE partnership, which has trained ~250 postgraduates since 2014, and has a proven track record of excellence in postgraduate research and training, including pioneering approaches to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
ACCE+ brings together the complementary strengths of >500 researchers with outstanding track-records in fundamental and applied environmental science from the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield and York, the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Natural History Museum and the National Oceanography Centre. This partnership is enhanced by a strategic end-user focus, through close links with a broad set of partners from industry, business and NGOs.
ACCE+ has 4 Objectives:
- Design and execute research projects in a distinctive manner that creates a cohesive, challenge-led, and interdisciplinary learning environment in which students have a shared goal to understand the nature, causes, and consequences of environmental change.
- Integrate end-user involvement into every level of the research and training to ensure that activities and outcomes are aligned with the needs of society to address environmental challenges as perceived across a wide range of sectors.
- Deliver an integrated programme of structured training at the individual and cohort level that ensures every student is empowered to reach their potential and deliver genuine change as future leaders addressing the challenges of a changing environment.
- Introduce, undertake, evaluate and continually improve processes that engender a genuinely diverse, supportive, and inclusive community of researchers.
These Objectives will be delivered through 4 interconnected pillars, whereby ACCE+ students will (1) undertake cutting-edge research through challenging interdisciplinary projects, involving (2) close integration with non-HEI partners, alongside (3) an innovative training programme. All activities will be underpinned by (4) an ethos focused on creating an inclusive and supportive culture across the DLA.
Through these activities the ACCE+ programme will deliver transformative research addressing globally-important questions about the causes and consequences of environmental change, and provide students with a world-class, supportive training environment that will enable them to become leaders of the next generation of environmental scientists.
If you have any queries about the new programme, please contact us at acce.dtp@liverpool.ac.uk.