Chief Scientific Adviser's Unit - Central Research Programme

Print Print page   Download PDF PDF image

This programme includes a number (but not all) of the cross-departmental initiatives addressing broad issues beyond the remit of individual policy-driven programmes. Projects supported can cover the whole range of the Department's operations and responsibilities. Two examples are:

ESRC/DfT Postgraduate Studentships

Following a competition in early 2005 the Department for Transport (DfT) is supporting four postgraduate studentships in collaboration with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

The studentships are intended to provide research findings in support of DfT's objective of reliable, safe, secure transport for everyone which respects the environment, and the awards are due to start in October.

This Studentship programme will be integrated into the proposed ESRC/DfT 'Transport Research Centre' to be formed in 2007.

The projects currently being supported are as follows:

  • The Labour Supply of Taxi Cab Drivers, Implications for Regulation and Congestion - University of Aberdeen, Department of Economics.
  • Facilitating walking as a means of urban transport - University of Lancaster, Department of Geography.
  • Tackling School Run Congestion from a Household Perspective - University of Newcastle, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology.
  • Relationship between the value of time and the benefits from a road pricing scheme - University of Oxford, Transport Studies Unit.

Students interested in undertaking one of these projects should contact the universities directly for application details.

Summer Placements in Whitehall

The Government is keen to strengthen links with the research community and encourage involvement in policy making. Stronger links should stimulate the critique of Departmental policies from researchers working in related fields, and should enable government priorities to influence the research agenda.

Under the Whitehall Research Summer Placement Scheme applicants were invited to submit research project proposals, either theoretical or applied, relevant to the aims and objectives of the Department, identifying emerging policy issues or increasing the Department's understanding of existing ones.

The DfT scheme involved applicants undertaking a two month project, of which at least four weeks was spent within the Department during the summer. It is this time where both the researcher and DfT benefited from knowledge sharing, in particular the researcher's unique opportunity of access to Whitehall process - a key aim of the scheme.

The successful proposals for 2005 were:

  • Research into Modelling the Linkages between Transport and the Economy in Remote and Peripheral Areas
  • Policy and Planning for City Centre Evening, Night-time and Economies, Entertainment and Transport Needs.

Information on previous projects is available on the DfT Research Database.