The University of York is training the next generation of physical scientists and engineers across five departments—Chemistry, Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics—with a £500M investment in facilities behind them. This Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) addresses a national need for skilled researchers who can work across traditional disciplinary boundaries. The programme connects fundamental science in areas like green chemistry, quantum communications, and fusion energy with real-world applications through collaborations with biology, geography, and industry partners. If successful, the DTP will produce PhD graduates equipped to tackle complex challenges—from developing autonomous systems that can be assured safe, to creating new materials for energy grids, to advancing digital creativity tools. The training also embeds research integrity, public engagement, and personal development, preparing researchers for careers beyond academia. The programme is primarily about building research capacity rather than pursuing a single specific application. But by supporting fundamental science across physics, chemistry, maths, and engineering—and linking to major projects like the Quantum Communications Hub and the Fusion Energy CDT—it creates the conditions for future breakthroughs in technologies that underpin communications, manufacturing, and healthcare.
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As a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, the University of York is committed to strengthening its position as one of the world's premier institutions for inspirational and life-changing research. York has invested over £500M in world-class resources to support research, rating 10th for research impact in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework exercise. Our EPSRC DTP supports world leading research across the Departments of Chemistry, Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Mathematics and Physics. Our research is highly interdisciplinary and projects are often carried out in collaboration with other departments, such as Biology or Environment and Geography, where these intersect with EPSRC cross-cutting themes. Departments also take advantage of local centres of excellence, such as Green Chemistry, Mass Spectrometry, Complex Systems Analysis, Magnetic Resonance and the York-JEOL Nanocentre, as well as industry collaborations and ongoing major projects such as the EPSRC-AHRC Digital Creativity Lab, Quantum Communications Hub, the Intelligent Games and Games Intelligence CDT (IGGI; http://www.iggi.org.uk/), the Fusion Energy CDT (http://www.fusion-cdt.ac.uk/), and the Assuring Autonomy International Programme. The approach of the DTP is supported by, and complementary to, the University Research Strategy themes (https://www.york.ac.uk/research/themes/) of 'Risk, Evidence and Decision Making', 'Technologies For The Future' and 'Health and Wellbeing' whilst remaining flexible to emerging research areas and stimulating new strategic directions such as GCRF-inspired research. The University provides a broad, postgraduate researcher-focused programme of training mapped to the national Researcher Development Framework, covering areas such as Research Integrity, Public Engagement and Personal Development, for all students. In addition, all EPSRC-facing departments offer bespoke training such as the Innovative Doctoral Training in Chemistry (iDTC), York Doctoral Symposium (Collaboration between Computer Science and Electronic Engineering), Physics Graduate Professional Development Programme, and MAGIC (Mathematics Access Grid Instruction and Collaboration). These programmes ensure our DTP students are fully supported in their studies and prepared for the next stage of their careers. DTP-funded positions are available at York each year across the aforementioned departments. The Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Sciences operates a two-pronged approach to allocating the studentships with a portion allocated by a Faculty-operated competitive process and a portion distributed to Departments. The strategy for both allocations is agreed between the Associate Dean and the EPSRC-facing departments early in the academic year so that all positions can be advertised in a timely fashion to attract the best candidates. Full details of available studentships are advertised on the postgraduate section of each department's website, which are linked to the external website FindaPhD.com: https://www.york.ac.uk/chemistry/postgraduate https://www.cs.york.ac.uk/postgraduate https://www.york.ac.uk/electronic-engineering/postgraduate/research_degrees/phd_projects https://www.york.ac.uk/maths/postgraduate https://www.york.ac.uk/physics/postgraduate All postgraduate researchers are members of the York Graduate Research School (YGRS)which supports our community of over 2,000 research students from the UK and around the world as they pursue their research. YGRS coordinates resources from across the University to help students achieve successful outcomes, ensuring that they receive the highest quality supervision and training. The University actively promotes diversity and equality across all departments, with an Equality Champions Network, 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 2 Bronze Athena Swan awards held by our five EPSRC-supported departments, and Physics recognised as an Institute of Physics 'Juno Champion' department.
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