The new wave

2000 PhD students to take on big problems with £250million new funding

The biggest ever UK investment in training scientists and engineers has been announced by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council - the UK funding body for science and engineering.
The £250million initiative will create 44 training centres across the UK and train over 2000 PhD students. They will tackle some of the biggest problems currently facing Britain such as climate change, energy, our ageing population, and high-tech crime.
Minister of State for Science and Innovation, Lord Drayson said: “Britain faces many challenges in the 21st Century and needs scientists and engineers with the right skills to find answers to these challenges, build a strong economy and keep us globally competitive. EPSRC’s doctoral training centres will provide a new wave of engineers and scientists to do the job.”
EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training are a new approach to training PhD students, creating communities of researchers working on current and future challenges. 17 of the new centres will be industrial training centres that will equip their students with the business skills they need to turn pioneering ideas into products and services, boosting their impact on the UK’s economy.
Professor Dave Delpy, chief executive of EPSRC, said: “People are the heart of our future strategy. We want to drive a modern economy and meet the challenges of tomorrow by investing in talented people and inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers.”
The multidisciplinary centres bring together diverse areas of expertise to train engineers and scientists with the skills, knowledge and confidence to tackle today’s evolving issues. They also create new working cultures, build relationships between teams in universities and forge lasting links with industry.
Students in these centres will receive a formal programme of taught coursework to develop and enhance their technical interdisciplinary knowledge, and broaden their set of skills. Alongside this they will undertake a challenging and original research project at PhD level.
The initiative is widely supported by business and industry. Professor Jeremy Watson, global director of research at Arup, said: "Businesses like Arup need a good supply of highly-qualified scientists with the right skills to further innovation in the design of sustainable towns, cities and the wider environment. They need to understand how business works and also be able to turn their best ideas into a successful business proposition."

The Institute of Chemical Engineers chief executive, Dr David Brown has welcomed the new funding. “It’s fantastic news which we in the chemical engineering community welcome with open arms,” says Brown.
“Despite the difficult financial climate we’re currently experiencing, there remain massive opportunities and challenges within the chemical, process and biochemical engineering communities, particularly within the energy field and genuinely sustainable development.”