Study

There are many opportunities for postgraduate study and research within the UCL EPSRC CDT in Engineering Solutions for Antimicrobial Resistance.

Training Programme

Our CDT will primarily recruit students with backgrounds in physical sciences, engineering and architecture; in addition, we will welcome life sciences students whose track records demonstrate a high aptitude for engineering and physical sciences. 

High-quality AMR-related PhD research projects will enable candidates to acquire in-depth, specialist skills in their respective disciplines. By contrast, the required breadth is achieved via a dedicated taught programme, peer-to-peer  learning experiences and engagement with external partners. Importantly, the CDT model also  offers a student experience that is vastly enhanced by inter-/cross-cohort support, e.g., for providing additional routes for pastoral care (e.g., mentoring) and a positive EDI culture. Incoming students will select PhD projects across our three research themes:

Theme (i): Prevention of Infections

The prevention of infections theme of the CDT will focus on the development and testing of technologies that eliminate or reduce the presence of pathogens on surfaces.

Theme (ii): Rapid diagnostic tests, digital health and improved surveillance systems

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Theme (iii): Increasing supply/development of antimicrobials & vaccines (novel therapies)

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Formal Taught Programme

We have designed a formal training programme (Fig. 2) that will leverage the unique benefits of a talented and diverse AMR-focused CDT cohort as well as the engagement of external partners.

The programme is structured such that in year 1, there will be a fixed day every week for students to undertake a whole-cohort module in common for all CDT themes. This module includes technical and wider aspects of research, research impact and translation, and provides opportunity to enhance cohort building and cohort-based learning experiences. In years 2-4, students will then undertake a bespoke-to-student training, providing a breadth and depth of training in research not available in standard PhD studentships.

Figure 2. CDT programme of recruitment, training, research, assessment and output. 

Cohort development by engagement with internal and external networks

We will leverage extensive engagement within and between cohorts, and with external partners and relevant UCL and national networks. Through co-design, co-delivery and in-depth interactions with partners, this programme will provide our graduates with the specialist research and broad contextual skills to create rapid impact targeting the AMR challenge.

Student supervision and pastoral care 

To guide the students through the CDT programme – for example, to assist in their bespoke training choices (for bespoke modules), to maximise their training, networking and secondment opportunities, and to target relevant seminars and conferences – and to ensure the wellbeing of each of our students, we have put in place an extensive support network. In addition to their supervisors (every UCL graduate research student has a first and second academic supervisor), each student will be supported by:

• A thesis committee comprised of 3-4 additional academics with expertise in the subject area but not directly related to the project;
• An academic member of the core management team (EDI and pastoral care lead); • the CDT manager and administrator, who will be able to signpost the student to relevant support at UCL; and
• A student mentor for a previous cohort. For the first two cohorts, we will draw on supervisors’ current PhD students in the third year of their studies as mentors. Mentoring activities will be conducted with reference to the RDF. 

In the core management team, the EDI and pastoral care lead (see Management and governance, below) will be responsible for ensuring that our students receive outstanding supervision, guidance and support throughout the entire CDT programme. 

Community Cohesion 

To help our student cohorts build strong connections, we will hold annual away days at the start of each academic year which will serve to forge social bonds as well as welcome the new cohort to the programme and to UCL. The away days will be an opportunity for the students to showcase their work as well as develop impact materials.  

All students from our cohorts will engage in the development of public engagement activities which will evolve over the course of the CDT. These exhibits and activities will be taken to public engagement with science events such as the Cheltenham Science Festival, the Bloomsbury Festival, the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition by our students. In addition to the UCL Orbyts scheme described above, further interactions with schools will take place at a schools-event day organised by CDT students, in which school pupils will visit the CDT and learn about AMR research through activities and talks. 

The social aspects of the cohort experience will further be strengthened by the annual partner events, UCL events, the Centre Conference in Engineering Solutions for AMR, beyond-UCL events and Careers events. We aim for these events to be student-led, with help from the Programme Manager and academic staff, encouraging student initiative while also providing relevant guidance as appropriate. 

Quality of the UCL environment  

For PhD supervision and training, our CDT benefits from the combined expertise of ~60 UCL academics evenly spread over UCL faculties of Built Environment, Engineering Sciences, Mathematical & Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Medical Sciences and Population Health Sciences (see Fig. 1 for a non-exhaustive list illustrating our disciplinary spread). Collectively, these academics (which include the Centre management team) manage a grant portfolio of currently active or recently completed grants in excess of £60M, including over £20M EPSRC funding. Our research excellence overall can also be illustrated by >80 publications in Nature group journals, Science and Cell over the past 10 years; these publications alone have already attracted >13.5k citations. Among our academics, we find world-leading expertise across many disciplines with specific relevance to the three CDT themes. Of specific importance for translation into the public-health sector, 10% of our academic supervisors also have roles as consultants in UCL-associated NHS Hospitals.  

Students in the CDT will also benefit from continued investment in world-class research infrastructure, centrally supported and coordinated through UCL’s nine cross-faculty Science Technology Platforms