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PhD Scholarships

We are currently collaborating with Coventry University to sponsor four PhD scholarships for people with lived experience of disability to undertake research into accessible transport.

The collaboration combines Coventry University’s strong tradition of design transport teaching and the Motability Foundation’s objective to fund, support, research and innovate so that all disabled people can make the journeys they choose.

The fully funded scholarships aim to give disabled people, and those who have direct and frequent interactions with them, the opportunity to train in the specialised area of transport design accessibility research, so they can in future bring both technical knowledge coupled with a lived experience to future transport policy and practice.

The doctoral candidates are being supervised by Professor Paul Herriotts and Professor Stewart Birrell from the National Transport Design Centre (NTDC) , which sits in the university’s Institute for Future Transport and Cities.

Stephanie’s experience

One of the doctoral candidates at NTDC, Stephanie, is focusing her research on the psychology of disabled people’s experiences when using trains. Here, she speaks about her own experience of rail travel and how it informs her work:

A video on Stephanie's PhD experience.

Find out more

To find out more visit the National Transport Design Centre (NTDC) website.

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Find out more

Research

We carry out, commission and fund research with disabled people and other partners, to understand how our current work makes a difference and to explore and develop new ways to make all transport accessible.

Our research

Innovation

Our research and innovation shows what needs to change so that more disabled people can use transport, now and in the future.

Our innovation work

Impact

We measure and evaluate the impact of our work by understanding the needs of disabled people, planning our projects and services with impact in mind, and by carrying out evaluation studies.

Our impact