Current Students and Staff

Loughborough University has been confirmed as a partner for four Centres for Doctoral Training (CDT) which were announced earlier this week.

The Centres, alongside over seventy others, have been successful in receiving funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), which has invested over £444 million in skills development across the UK.

The CDTs will bring together diverse areas of expertise to train engineers and scientists with the skills, knowledge and confidence to tackle today’s evolving issues and challenges.

They also provide a supportive and exciting environment for students, by creating new working cultures, building relationships between teams in universities and forging links with industry partners.

The Centres Loughborough University has partnered with are as follows:

• CDT in Energy Resilience and the Built Environment – led by University College London with Loughborough as a partner (Kevin Lomas and Rob McLeod)

This new EPSRC CDT will train at least 50 PhD graduates to understand the systemic, radical, multi and interdisciplinary challenges we face, and equip them with the leadership credentials to effect change. An integrated, 4-year programme will be co-created with our stakeholder partners and students. It will provide the knowledge, research and transferable skills to enable outstanding graduates from physics to social sciences to pursue research in one of three themes: flexibility and resilience; technology and system performance; and comfort, health and well-being.

• CDT in Water and Waste Infrastructure Systems Engineered for Resilience – led by University of Leeds, with Loughborough University (Anna Blenkinsopp and Qiuhua Liang) and Cranfield University as partners

Water WISER offers a unique opportunity to contribute to the generation of new knowledge about sustainable water, sanitation and waste management services to improve infrastructure and services for the poorest and most marginalised members of our global community.

• CDT in Sustainable Hydrogen - led by University of Nottingham, with Loughborough University (Upul Wijayantha-Kahagala-Gamage and Monica Giulietti), University of Birmingham and Ulster University as partners

This CDT will work in partnership with the stakeholder community to train the innovation leaders needed to translate to the market the novel, disruptive hydrogen solutions required for deep decarbonisation, thereby enabling the UK to meet its 2050 target for carbon reduction and providing globally competitive, highly-trained doctoral talent sought by industry for an acceleration in growth of the low-carbon sector.

• CDT in Future Propulsion and Power – led by Cambridge University in collaboration with Loughborough University (Jon Carrotte) and University of Oxford

To maintain its leadership position, the UK must train a new generation of engineers with the skills needed to innovate in this data-rich environment. This new CDT in Future Propulsion and Power will train engineers with the Data, Learning and Design, and Systems Integration skills required by aero-thermal engineers of the future.

Commenting on the announcement earlier this week, Science and Innovation Minister Chris Skidmore said: “The Centres for Doctoral Training at universities across the country will offer the next generation of PhD students the ability to get ahead of the curve. In addition, this has resulted in nearly £400 million being leveraged from industry partners. This is our modern Industrial Strategy in action, ensuring all corners of the UK thrive with the skills they need for the jobs of tomorrow. 

“As Science Minister, I’m delighted we’re making this massive investment in postgraduate students as part of our increased investment in R&D.”