COPDEND (the Committee of Postgraduate Dental Deans and Directors) is calling for applications for research projects that may attract funding up to £25,000. The Research Tender Protocol and outline of the project can be downloaded from www.copdend.org.

The title of the 2011/12 Invitation to Tender for a Research Project is Developing quality standards for UK postgraduate dental educators. COPDEND wishes to explore the extent of formal educator training undertaken by Deanery postgraduate dental educators in the UK, with a view to developing national quality standards.

Applications should be submitted to the COPDEND Secretariat by 31 December 2011; emma.jackson@yorksandhumber.nhs.uk. Projects will be screened by the COPDEND Research Group in January/February 2012 and a final decision will be taken soon after.

COPDEND also organised the first ever coordinated dental foundation recruitment exercise for England and Wales this year, in partnership with London Deanery. Over 1,100 individuals applied for dental foundation training posts in England and Wales. All those eligible were due to be interviewed during November by trained and calibrated dental trainers and educators, with postgraduate deaneries allocating successful candidates to training practices in the spring for year-long posts starting next August.

The national process has been developed following several years of piloting centralised recruitment in more than half of UK deaneries.

Applications to Dental Foundation Training for 2012 in Northern Ireland and Scotland are being organised separately.