Each mini Centre will fund five PhD studentships which will cluster around these topics, establish new collaborations and provide outstanding student training experience.
Professor Elizabeth Peel, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor (Doctoral College) said: “After a hiatus in 2019 where we established the Elite Sports Doctoral Scholarship Scheme, I am delighted that we have been able to support new mini CDTs. I wish Professors Rebecca Cain and Sandie Dann and their supervisory teams and external partners every success in their innovative projects.”
The centre tackling homelessness – Harnessing Opportunities for Meaningful Environments (HOME) – will be led by Professor Rebecca Cain in the School of Design and Creative Arts. They will look to find new approaches to tackle this systematic societal problem, using a creative lens to build empathy and understanding from under-represented perspectives and under-researched contexts across different types of homelessness.
Professor Cain added: “We will develop new methods to give voice to those affected by homelessness and empower them as co-designers in improving policy. Working with our committed external partners we will creatively bring to life the relationships between power, policy and the material realities of homelessness to develop impactful and responsible solutions for policy change.”
Securing a sustainable fuel supply through controlled synthesis of low-dimensional catalysts (SlowCat) will be the focus of the second centre and will be led by Professor Sandie Dann in the School of Science.
Collaborating with the School of Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Material Engineering, the School of Science will address the need to find realistic to alternatives to dwindling fossil fuel stocks.
Currently, generating replacement biofuels and high-value chemicals from waste materials is resource-intensive and costly. The centre will design bespoke catalysts to convert these waste products cheaply.
Professor Dann commented: “This combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches needs our interdisciplinary team, supported by experts from academia and industry. In this way, we aim to realise the true potential of biomass for a more secure and sustainable society.”
Recruitment will commence shortly, with the first PhD students expected to start their studies in October 2020.