Resources

Your doctoral study as part of Northern Bridge Consortium will be supported by an outstanding wealth of resources, only some of which are highlighted here:

• All seven universities in our Consortium are actively contributing to the delivery and leadership of flagship arts projects. Northumbria collaborates with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art on the Baltic 39 studio and exhibition space, Durham contributes to the management and funding of the Durham Book Festival, Ulster supports the Belfast International Festival and is a sponsor of the Belfast Photo Festival. Newcastle, Sunderland, and Teesside Universities are major partners in the management of leading civic institutions: the Great North Museum and the Hatton Gallery, the National Glass Centre, and the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.

• Students can benefit from a diverse range of excellent facilities and resources. These include numerous fine collections. Durham’s Sudan Archive, Bishop Cosins Library, Chinese and Egyptian Collections are all Designated Collections, signalling Arts Council recognition of their international pre-eminence. Durham’s Special Collections, alongside the libraries of Ushaw College and Durham Cathedral, constitute one of the most significant concentrations of medieval and early modern material in the UK. Among other archival highlights are the Bloodaxe Books and Gertrude Bell Archives (Newcastle), the Irish Collections and the Sir Robert Hart Collection (Queen’s), the CAIN Conflict Archive on the Internet (Ulster), and the archives and collections of the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Teesside). Our libraries have well in excess of 5.5 million volumes, access to over 60,000 e-journals and one million ebooks, with excellent coverage across all areas included in this proposal.

• Facilities for practice-based researchers are second-to-none, and encompass: studios for printmaking, photography and sculpture; wood, metal and ceramic workshops, a resin room and kilns (Newcastle). In Digital Arts there are digital suites, performance spaces and hi-tech equipment including 3D scanning and printing facilities, high-end digital fabric printing, green screen and motion capture (Teesside). The National Glass Centre (Sunderland) offers facilities including a new hot shop, water-jet studio, glass and ceramics printmaking studio, lampworking studio, and computer-aided design suite. In Music, there are studios including professional recording and music production suites alongside a range of practice facilities, providing for full band multi-track recording, electro-acoustic composition, multimedia work and sound art installations (Newcastle, Durham, Queen’s). In Film there are editing suites, all appropriate software and high-specification cameras (Newcastle, Sunderland, Teesside and Ulster).

Doctoral Training

Northern Bridge Consortium offers research training and career development opportunities tailored to the needs of 21st century researchers.

We provide training of the highest quality to meet the needs of individual students.

Student development activities will give you access to tailored training, including language study, placements with non-academic partners in the UK or internationally, and an evolving suite of specialised courses delivered face-to-face and via audio-visual technology.

A distinctive feature of our offer is the Student Innovation Forum through which students will be able to design their own bespoke training packages. A series of annual Cohort Development events (an Autumn Conference, a Summer School and a Completion and Leadership Workshop for students beginning the final year of their PhD), will allow you to join your peers from the seven universities for several days each year in one location to share best practice and acquire key professional skills.

Our aim is to provide the training support you need to graduate as a confident early career researcher equipped to assume a leadership role in a wide range of professions.