Question reference: S5W-30258
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
- Date lodged: 26 June 2020
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Current status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 10 July 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what support it is giving to postgraduate research students whose research has been disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak, including offering funded extensions where required.
Answer
The Scottish Government is doing all it can to support those in the Higher Education sector being disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak. The Scottish Government have announced a support package including the one-off £75 million increase in capital funding for Scotland’s universities to ensure they can protect their world-leading research programmes against the financial impact of COVID-19.
As part of this funding the SFC have issued guidance on this significant investment which requires each university using this resource to assist PhD students whose studies have been affected by COVID-19. Additionally, universities are being asked to take action to mitigate negative and promote positive impacts and to advance equality of opportunity and diversity of research focus. The full details of the SFC guidance can be found here: http://www.sfc.ac.uk/publications-statistics/announcements/2020/SFCAN082020.aspx .
All PhD students supported by Chief Scientist Office grants have been offered 6 month stipend extensions, if required, to ensure they are not disadvantaged by disruption around the Covid-19 Pandemic. Where a PhD student has been funded through RESAS Underpinning National Capacity funding, that funding line has been extended by one year, so it will now end 31st March 2022. Individual educational decisions on PhD students remain with the institutes concerned.