Breadcrumbs
Centre for Doctoral Training
In 2008 the SCI Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) welcomed its first intake of students offering fully-funded four year scholarships, initially sponsored by Tesco. Our entry standards are high and very competitive. Our aim is to recruit the highest calibre applicants to join our challenging PhD programme. In this way we are rapidly achieving our primary objective, which is to build a community of top-quality early career researchers from multiple disciplines, and from a wide range of international backgrounds, able to address the most pressing sustainability problems of our time. Currently, the SCI’s three main research themes are: sustainable consumer behaviours and lifestyles; stimulating eco-innovation for sustainable production and distribution; and climate change and carbon – mitigation, adaptation and vulnerability. The SCI is also developing capacity in two new areas, sustainable cities and eco-system services.
Our doctoral students are registered, supervised and hosted by the most appropriate School for their individual PhD topic. Indeed, we are the only Manchester Centre for Doctoral Training to have a body of students representing all four Faculties of The University of Manchester. Each student undertakes the appropriate School based discipline and research training. In addition, we bring them together through the CDT to undertake a range of simulated (and real-life) problem-based team tasks, and to attend workshops which build capabilities to interact confidently with peers across disciplines, and with a range of non-academic stakeholders including business, policy and non-governmental groups.
At the time of writing we have 26 doctoral students forming the core SCI CDT community across 3 year groups. The three current cohorts began their CDT programme in 2008 (11 students) 2009 (9 students) 2010 (6 students). The variety of PhD research topics and diversity of student backgrounds gives the CDT its unique profile and reflects the multi-disciplinary nature of the SCI. Our students are in People section of the website and their research topic areas listed under Postgraduate research.
Earlier this year our students ran a PhD conference entitled ‘Sustainable Futures' aimed at postgraduate students from across the UK and Europe. Conference proceedings have led to an accepted paper in theJournal of Environmental Development(Elsevier) due to be published in December 2011/January 2012.
In May 2011, students from the 2008 cohort participated in "Meet the Sustainability Scientists" at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Their hands-on exhibit was aimed at families and members of the general public visiting MOSI, following the story of "Lost Socks: Tales of Sustainability."
For more information about the PhD programme please contact Senior Programme Administrator, Sue Huzar at sue.huzar@manchester.ac.uk.
PhD studies are central to our research capacity building. SCI doctoral graduates are uniquely qualified to make contributions in many emerging areas of activity aligned with the challenges of environmental sustainability.