To ask the Minister for Employment and Learning how many additional PhD places, which are financially supported by business and philanthropy, his Department has matched funding for in each year since 2012.

My Department funds a baseline number of 495 postgraduate awards (PGAs) each year. Through the Higher Education strategy, I committed to considering funding additional places in areas of economic relevance and matching funding for places which are financially supported by business and philanthropy. The overall outcome reflected in the Strategy was to double the number of awards to 1,000 by 2020.

In response to this commitment, I have secured resources for an additional 351 PGAs, which are being funded from the Executive’s Jobs and Economy Initiative and from my Department’s Higher Education resources. These additional PGAs are being phased in from academic year 2013/14 at the rate of 117 per year and, rather than specifically match funding business or philanthropy places, the additional PGAs are targeted towards subjects deemed to be economically relevant.

Based on the current arrangements, the Department will be directly funding 846 postgraduate awards by 2015/16.