Universal Acceptance Date

All NERC Doctoral Landscape Awards (DLAs) and Doctoral Focus Awards (DFAs) have agreed to adhere to an annual universal acceptance deadline for PhD studentship offers. For the October 25 intake this date is 19th March 2025 at 12:00 pm.

The purpose of the annual universal acceptance deadline is to ensure that PhD applicants who have applied for multiple studentship opportunities, and may therefore receive multiple offers, do not have to make a decision on the studentship they wish to accept before knowing the outcome of all of their applications.

Applicants who receive a PhD studentship offer from a NERC DLA or DFA for the 2025/26 academic year are therefore not required to accept an offer formally before this date unless they wish to do so.