STFC support for short courses and summer schools

The STFC's Education and Training programme has in recent years supported the following well-established short courses and summer schools:

• introductory course in astronomy for new research students
• introductory course in solar physics
• advanced course in solar physics
• British Universities summer school in elementary particle physics

In addition the Committee's chort courses and summer schools budget provides funding for the following:

• support to allow STFC PhD students to attend the National Astronomy Meeting at a reduced rate
• a contribution towards the organisation of the Scottish Universities summer school in physics, when this is held in an STFC field of science

STFC is inviting bids against its budget for short courses and summer schools to be held in 2012. The level of funding available for these will be set in the context of the overall level of funding and priorities within the education and training programme, but is unlikely to be more than in recent years. The courses and schools listed above will be expected to bid should they wish to have support in 2012 and will be considered in competition with any new submissions.

Courses or schools must be held in a core research activity supported by the STFC studentships programme (astronomy, solar system science, particle astrophysics, particle physics, nuclear physics) and must be aimed primarily at STFC-funded PhD students. Courses of a specialist technical nature will not be supported.

All bids must be contained within three pages and provide the following information:

• the dates and venue of the proposed course or school
• justification for the course or school, in terms of its relevance to the STFC studentships programme
• the number of STFC PhD students who would benefit from the course or school
• a detailed breakdown of the budget requested
• details of the proposed lectures and courses

Bids must be submitted as an e-mail attachment to the studentships@stfc.ac.uk by 5pm on Friday, 30 September 2011.

It should be noted that any courses currently funded from the STFC grants line, for example the RAL summer school in particle physics and the biennial school in nuclear physics, should not bid against this call.