UCL Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science and Technologies

The Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science and Technologies will train a new generation of PhD students to handle the vast floods of data produced by modern scientific instruments. This matters because experiments in particle physics, astronomy, and other fields now generate petabytes of information—far more than traditional methods can process. Without skilled researchers who can develop new computational tools and analytical techniques, the data from these experiments would remain largely unexplored, limiting scientific discovery. The potential impact is twofold. First, the trained graduates will advance fundamental science, enabling discoveries about the universe's structure and the nature of matter. Second, the data-handling skills they develop often transfer to industries that depend on large-scale data analysis—such as medical imaging, financial modelling, and climate science—improving systems that quietly underpin modern life. This is primarily a training programme for fundamental science. It does not promise immediate practical applications, but similar investments in data-intensive training have historically produced unexpected breakthroughs, from improved machine learning algorithms to better medical diagnostics.