The ACRC Academy

Creating future leaders who will enhance society’s response to the challenges of an ageing population.

Applications for the ACRC Academy PhD studentships for 2023 are now open. You can view the full list of projects here: PhD Projects

The Academy for Leadership and Training in Advanced Care will develop the next generation of leaders in this field who are both excellent in their core disciplines and skilled in working widely across disciplines and sectors. The core degree is a thematic, structured, enterprise oriented, cohort‐based 4‐year PhD with a first taught year, followed by 3 years of PhD research. 

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Rationale and Purpose

Alumni of the Academy will become leaders in their chosen field of later life as they go on to address the issue which is growing in scale and urgency and is characterised by complex problems that defy narrow solutions. We will prepare our three annual cohorts for a diverse range of pioneering and influential roles in the public, private and third sectors. 

The Academy has a dual function:

Capacity building

The primary purpose of the Academy is to support the mission of the ACRC by developing and equipping a new generation of doctoral-research-trained leaders as pioneers of creation, innovation and implementation across the spectrum of the care sector. The novel development approaches developed in the Academy will then be cascaded out across the sector through the development and delivery of flexible and accessible training suitable to evolving needs in the field, including masters-level, face to face and online short courses, workshops and seminars/webinars. 

Agile research agenda

A further purpose of the Academy is to deliver significant aspects of the research agenda of the ACRC, using our doctoral cohorts as a rapid innovation incubator.  Through the annual cycle of new PhD research projects, the Academy will increase the agility and responsiveness of the research programme by facilitating, for example, feasibility studies for new, speculative, and/or high-risk, high-reward topics; and the application of additional resource for supplementary topics in the main themes. 

Programme

We will deliver an intensive 48-month cohort-based structured thematic programme “PhD with Integrated Study in Advanced Care” that will provide structure and rigour to the Academy. 

• Core PhD research will be complemented with an innovative initial taught year and continuing training designed to create a future leader who is agile, engaging, influential and intellectually credible. 
• The diverse cohort will be educated so they share common foundations in advanced care and the associated societal challenges; familiarisation with relevant topics outside of their background and comfort zones. 
• The training will balance the needs of the individual (equipping them with methods and tools of relevance to their chosen research and innovation project) with the needs of society (using open-ended problem-solving exercises tackled in multi-disciplinary groups to develop team, planning and organisational skills).  
• The cohort will explore and develop their leadership through network development, innovation, public engagement and advocacy; the completion of at least one short external project in the form of a cross-sectoral or international placement, or internship to work collaboratively on a shared problem. 
• We are committed to securing substantial external (cross-sectoral) input into the design and delivery of the training as it is vital that the cohort are exposed to a breadth of perspectives, agendas and motivations as they prepare for the complexity of the sector and their future leadership roles. 
• We will recruit fully funded cohorts of 12 per annum from a wide range of backgrounds and experience. Inclusivity and diversity will be at the heart of the recruitment process. 

ACRC Academy Programme