Timeline
Before the beginning...
The Beginning
2020
2021
Our aims became:
- Increase the visibility of these opportunities to all students fairly, to widen participation and engagement
- Use the programme to provide cohort level mentorship to students and supervisors (post-docs, technicians, early career)
Our first GenerationResearch symposium was held on 16th September 2021 to allow all students to present their achievements. This becomes a regular event in the GenRes calendar.
Funding for 24 studentships. Project hosts were expanded to York, Leeds, Sheffield, Cambridge, FujiFilm Diosynth, and across disciplines (Medicine, Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Physics), with multiple external partners now supporting us (StreamBIO, BBSRC/White Rose doctoral training programme, the Max Perutz Prize at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology).
Chris MacDonald (Henry Dale Wellcome fellow, York) joined the GenerationResearch team and support from other friends of GenRes to process 250 applications (Emily Flack, James Stockdale, lecturers at York)!
The process for increasing diversity and inclusivity in our application process fully embedded, leading to at least 50% of our successful students from underrepresented backgrounds.
2022
Summer 2022
Total number of summer studentships funded rises to 32. The GenerationResearch student symposium attracts nearly 100 attendees. We also fully fund 2 Masters by Research students, providing a UKRI stipend, tuition fees, and a project budget, and an industrial placement student in partnership with AstraZeneca. Other new partners we work with are the MRC Mary Lyon Centre in Harwell, Sense About Science, the Royal Society, and Novogene.
The ‘Friends of GenRes’ who give up their time to read our 360 student applications and help with interviews grows (Emily Flack, James Stockdale, Joana Correia Faria, Nathaniel Jones). For the first time we receive applications from students at University of Bradford and University of Hull, with 53% of studentships being awarded to students from underrepresented backgrounds, and from diverse degree backgrounds such as Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, and Natural Science.