Bionow members and companies across the life sciences have an opportunity to tap into some of the region's brightest emerging bioscience talent

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Universities and Education
29 Oct 2026
Bionow members and companies across the life sciences have an opportunity to tap into some of the region's brightest emerging bioscience talent. Through the YBDTP PIPS programme, organisations can host a PhD student for a three-month professional placement, gaining enthusiastic, highly skilled additional resource while giving the student valuable commercial experience outside academia:
 
 

Yorkshire Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership (YBDTP) placements

 

Overview of the YBDTP

  • The YBDTP is a BBSRC funded doctoral training partnership, and our aim is to train the next generation of bioscientists and biotechnologists for careers in the UK bioeconomy.
  • We recruit ~40 PhD students per year to universities across Yorkshire and Teesside (Leeds, Sheffield, York, Bradford, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds Beckett, Sheffield Hallam and Teesside).

YBDTP placements

  • During their PhD, YBDTP students do a Professional Internship for PhD Students (PIPS), a 3-month placement, which is unrelated to their PhD project.
  • PIPS placements enable students to gain non-academic work experience, which helps our PhD students understand the context of their research and exposes them to the range of opportunities available outside of academia after they graduate.

Benefits of placements

  • The PIPs scheme is mutually beneficial to the student and the host organisation.
  • You receive a highly motivated and highly intelligent intern who will make a substantial and positive contribution to your organisation.
  • The student receives from you a professional experience, unrelated to their PhD research, that develops and enhances their broader, work-related skills and gives them an insight into a profession they may not have previously considered.

Placement funding

  • The students do not require a salary from the host organisation, because they continue to receive their BBSRC-funded stipend throughout their placement.  The student can also claim an allowance of up to £1,000 from the YBDTP to reimburse them for travel and accommodation expenses.  
  • In some instances, the expenses are more than the YBDTP allowance, and we would ask host organisations to make a voluntary contribution. 

How to offer a placement

  • For organisations who would like to offer a PIPS placement, all we require initially is an outline of the placement project or activity.  We will then post the outline on the YBDTP website and share via email with our PhD students.
  • If a PhD student does a PIPS placement with your organisation, we will require a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to set an expectation of the activities or project on which the student will be working. PIPS placement hosts are also required to complete a Health and Safety checklist prior to starting the PIPS placement.

Further information