Industrial CASE Account - University of Oxford 2021

The University of Oxford will use this grant to fund a cohort of doctoral students working on industrially relevant engineering and physical sciences projects. This is a training grant, not a single research project. It creates a pipeline for PhD students to tackle real-world problems in collaboration with companies. The gap it fills is the need for skilled researchers who can move between academic discovery and commercial application—people trained not just in theory but in how to turn that theory into products, processes, or services. If successful, the students will produce fundamental science and applied solutions across fields like advanced manufacturing, energy systems, computing, and materials science. The impact could be new battery chemistries, more efficient semiconductor designs, or better algorithms for logistics networks—things that quietly underpin modern life. Because each student works with an industrial partner, the research has a direct route to market. This is primarily a skills and capacity-building programme. It does not target a single breakthrough. But past CASE studentships have led to spin-out companies, patented technologies, and improvements in everything from medical imaging to aircraft engine efficiency.