Brunel University London is training the next generation of engineers and scientists through a Doctoral Training Partnership that places PhD students directly into industrial settings, from Jaguar Land Rover’s metal casting centre to BP’s structural integrity labs. This matters because the UK faces a gap between laboratory-scale discoveries and full-scale industrial application—particularly in energy, manufacturing, and materials science. Without researchers who can bridge that divide, promising fundamental science stalls before it reaches factories, power grids, or supply chains. The programme targets this bottleneck by embedding PhD students in facilities like the Advanced Metal Casting Centre and the National Structural Integrity Research Centre, where they work on real industrial problems while earning their doctorates. If successful, the partnership will produce a cohort of researchers who can move seamlessly between academia and industry. That could accelerate the deployment of energy-efficient manufacturing processes, lighter automotive components, and more resilient infrastructure—systems that quietly underpin daily life but rarely make headlines. The funding also supports newly-appointed mathematical sciences staff, ensuring that fundamental quantitative skills remain embedded in the UK’s research base.
View original technical description
Brunel University London has a well-founded reputation as a leader in research, consistently offering "research and enterprise for the benefit of individual and society" since 1966 when the University received its Royal Charter. Brunel University London is firmly within the top quarter of research universities in the UK according to REF 2014. Our research in engineering, design and physical sciences spans a variety of major fields from energy, automotive, materials and manufacturing, as well as mathematical sciences and computing. Our College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences ranks amongst London's biggest and best for the quality of its research. We are a leading expert in energy and food sustainability-related research, with the EPSRC-funded National Centre for Sustainable Energy Use in Food Chains developing energy-efficient manufacturing, distribution and retail solutions. The Advanced Metal Casting Centre is being established on campus with funding from HEFCE, in partnership with a number of industrial companies, led by Jaguar Land Rover, to serve the automotive, aerospace and other engineering sectors as a national scale-up facility to bridge the gap between fundamental, laboratory-scale research and full-scale industrial trials. The National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) based in Cambridge, also funded by HEFCE, is a partnership between Brunel and internationally-renowned technology, engineering and research organisation TWI, also supported by BP and the Lloyd's Register Foundation. Postgraduate research students are valued members of the University's research community and make a significant contribution to the University's thriving research activities. The importance of developing transferable skills during a research programme is well recognised by research funders, employers and doctoral graduates. A doctoral qualification demonstrates an exceptionally high level of academic achievement. However, to be effective as a doctoral researcher and subsequently in a doctoral career (within or outside academia), postgraduate researchers also need a broader range of professional (transferable) skills. Brunel offers a variety of opportunities for postgraduate research students to develop their skills. Research students are expected to take responsibility for shaping, managing and directing their research training (taking advice from the supervisory team). The Brunel 3D Researcher Development Tool has been developed by the University to provide a common framework to enable all research students to reflect upon their training and development needs. A number of EPSRC Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTP) studentships are available to support postgraduate research opportunities in engineering, design and physical sciences in the Institute of Materials and Manufacturing (IMM) (for improving the performance of materials and structures), Institute of Energy Futures (IEF) (for improving energy usage and reducing greenhouse gas emissions), and the College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences (CEDPS) (mathematical science, big data, autonomous systems and robotics, digital technologies). We welcome applications for studentships in these areas. The DTP funding will be used to match the industrial support of PhD studentships and to support PhD students spending a period of time at an industrial company. The DTP funding will be used strategically to consolidate the critical mass in areas of intensive research activities and excellent infrastructure at Brunel, which are represented by the research themes in the research institutes and the research clusters in the college. In support of mathematical sciences and their application to engineering and physical sciences, the DTP funding will be made available to newly-appointed academic staff in the Department of Mathematical Sciences to support their first EPSRC grant.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know