About the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy
The Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy moved to a new building on the West Cambridge Science and Technology campus in late 2013. For the first time in its history, the Department is now housed in a single building designed for purpose. The Department has over 30 academic staff including research fellows, more than 50 administrative, technical and support staff, and roughly 80 postdoctoral researchers, 130 research students and 30 visiting scientists at any time.
We are very well equipped with state-of-the-art research facilities in both materials science and materials engineering. Our research is sponsored by about 130 different industries and government organisations in the UK and overseas. The Department has a diverse and energetic research school and offers Master's and Doctoral level training programmes, some in collaboration with industry or in structured Centres for Doctoral Training. Over the past 25 years over 60 nationalities have been welcomed into the research school and and we encourage students to take advantage of the many professional and personal development training opportunities available to them.
5 courses offered in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy
Advanced Materials for the Energy Transition - MPhil
The MPhil in Advanced Materials for the Energy Transition is an 11-month Master's Programme that is designed to deliver outstanding postgraduate level training in the sciences related to the development of new materials for low-carbon energy technologies.
Global warming and energy challenges are putting strong constraints on our society and will lead to major economic and societal changes in the future. To overcome these challenges and promote a sustainable modern society, it is necessary to develop new technologies with minimum environmental impact for example with low energy consumption and low carbon production.
The development of these energy-materials-based new technologies necessitates an interdisciplinary expertise in scientific and technological domains such as Physics, Chemistry, and Materials Science. This interdisciplinary training is necessary to understand and model new materials properties, find ways to synthesize them, and develop new zero-carbon energy technologies.
The Master's level degree responds to this demand and it is shaped to address it. It combines core elements with general and specialised training with a strong research project element. The training will combine different scientific disciplines.
Developing National Capability for Materials 4.0 EPSRC CDT - PhD
This PhD course is part of the EPSRC Centre of Doctoral Training (CDT) in Developing National Capability for Materials 4.0 led by the University of Manchester.
Success in achieving net zero, delivering a healthy nation and driving increased national resilience and productivity, will be critically reliant on novel materials and devices. This demands rapid delivery, but it typically takes up to 20 years to bring new materials to commercial use. To move faster we need scientists and engineers able to exploit new developments in high-throughput approaches to making, characterising and testing new materials, and able to deploy materials modelling and materials informatics to generate and exploit materials data. We need to digitalise the materials innovation process to accelerate development, certification and deployment of new materials, and materials systems. We need researchers adept at working across interfaces between machine learning, informatics, physical and cyber systems and modelling, learning from advances in other disciplines and breaking silos. In other words, we need graduates proficient in ‘Materials 4.0’.
The goal of this PhD program is to develop leaders in the field of Materials 4.0 and ambassadors for a broader cultural shift in the practice of materials science. Working across boundaries between fields, the students will develop and advocate for new capabilities (methods and techniques) to drive forward the digitalisation of materials research and innovation.
The CDT will develop the necessary skills in a significant number of new scientists, but our ambition is to build an even broader skills base for UK academia and industry. The training programme is therefore designed to take our students from learners to leaders over the course of the programme. The students will begin by learning core skills, but as they develop proficiency and confidence they will play a role in training others, within and external to the CDT. Their research projects will focus on developing new methods and tools within Materials 4.0 and in their last two years the students will take the lead in developing training materials for these new methods, delivering training and disseminating the new capability.
By training a new generation of researchers in the digitalisation of materials science, the CDT will provide the skilled recruits that UK industry and academia need to shorten time to market, improve productivity and resilience and maintain industrial competitiveness. Moreover, through the innovative delivery mechanism of our national CDT bringing together the strengths of three national institutes, we will drive broad culture change, disseminating skills across industry and academia, making Materials 4.0 a ubiquitous way of doing materials science.
Materials Science and Metallurgy - MPhil
The Materials Science Department in Cambridge leads a wide spectrum of cutting-edge materials research with state-of-the-art facilities. The department has a thriving postgraduate school with more than 130 research students studying for postgraduate research degrees in areas that address key problems in materials science (see details via the Materials Challenges page on the department website).
A small number of students (usually five or fewer) are admitted to the one-year MPhil by thesis in Materials Science each academic year.
Before applying, please carefully review the information available on our departmental website. Familiarise yourself with the department's work and potential supervisors' research interests and projects. Please look at the overview of our research interests and contact the Academic Staff working in your area(s) of academic interest to check that they are available to supervise you and that they can offer a suitable research project.
If you are not able to identify a Supervisor at this stage, the department will contact you to discuss your research interests and ask you to identify supervisors, but the availability of a particular Supervisor and/or project will not be guaranteed.
MPhil students are encouraged to participate in many of the training opportunities and other activities available to students in the University and become fully integrated members of the department's Research School.
Students carry out a one-year research programme under the supervision of a member of the academic staff of the Department of Materials Science.
Materials Science and Metallurgy - PhD
The Materials Science Department in Cambridge leads a wide spectrum of cutting-edge materials research with state-of-the-art facilities. The department has a thriving postgraduate school with more than 130 research students studying for postgraduate research degrees in areas that address key problems in materials science (see details via the Materials Challenges page on the department website).
Up to 40 students are admitted to full-time PhD studies in materials science each academic year. The majority start in October, but a small number are admitted in January and April. Students are fully integrated into the department's research culture, join a research group, and are supervised by one or two members of our academic staff.
Students wishing to apply for a PhD in Materials Science should investigate opportunities on the department website.
Before applying, please carefully review the information available on our departmental website. Familiarise yourself with the department's work and potential supervisors' research interests and projects. Please look at the overview of our research interests and contact the Academic Staff working in your area(s) of academic interest to check that they are available to supervise you and that they can offer a suitable research project.
If you are not able to identify a Supervisor at this stage, the department will contact you to discuss your research interests and ask you to identify supervisors, but the availability of a particular Supervisor and/or project will not be guaranteed.
Micro and Nanotechnology Enterprise - MPhil
The MPhil in Micro and Nanotechnology Enterprise is an exciting opportunity in which world-leading scientists and successful entrepreneurs are brought together to deliver a one-year master’s degree combining an in-depth multidisciplinary scientific programme with a global perspective on the commercial opportunities and business practice necessary for the successful exploitation in the rapidly developing fields of nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing.
The programme is intended for those with a good first degree in the physical sciences and relevant areas of engineering, who wish to develop research skills and commercial awareness of the cutting-edge disciplines of micro- and nanotechnology. The course will provide an unparalleled educational experience for entrepreneurs in these fields.
7 courses also advertised in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy
2D Materials of Tomorrow EPSRC CDT - PhD
From the Department of Engineering
Awaiting ApprovalClinical Medicine Wellcome Trust - PhD
From the Faculty of Clinical Medicine
We provide high-quality research training to clinical health professionals with an aptitude for research to enable them to become future leaders in medical and healthcare science. We offer training in an outstanding environment, spanning basic science, translational medicine, interdisciplinary, behavioural and applied health research.
We take great pride in our track record of successfully training health professionals to undertake the highest quality research across Cambridge and Norwich. We offer one of the most rewarding environments in which you could pursue your research training with world-leading researchers in The Schools of Clinical Medicine and Biological Sciences at the Universities of Cambridge, Wellcome Sanger Institute and other MRC, Wellcome & Cancer Research UK funded Institutes, Centres & Units in the wider Cambridge area, as well as the School of Health Sciences and Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia with other partners on the Norwich Research Park. The most important criteria we are looking for are the pursuit of research excellence, hard work and the will to make a difference to health.
The programme faculty provides mentoring and guidance on opportunities to undertake pre-doctoral research placements, enabling successful candidates to make an informed choice of PhD project and supervisor. Bespoke training and support for career development for fellows, together with support to supervisors, ensures a successful research experience. Post-doctorally, we will guide fellows based on their individual progress, to make the transition into higher research fellowships and clinical pathways, enabling ongoing training with continuance of research momentum.
Computational Methods for Materials Science CDT - MPhil + PhD
From the Department of Physics
The development of new materials lies at the heart of many of the technological challenges we currently face, for example creating advanced materials for energy generation. Computational modelling plays an increasingly important role in the understanding, development and optimisation of new materials.
This four-year doctoral training programme on computational methods for material modelling aims to train scientists not only in the use of existing modelling methods but also in the underlying computational and mathematical techniques. This will allow students to develop and enhance existing methods, for instance by introducing new capabilities and functionalities, and also to create innovative new software tools for materials modelling in industrial and academic research.
The first year of the doctoral training programme is provided by the existing MPhil course in Scientific Computing, which has research and taught elements, as well as additional training elements. The final three years consist of a PhD research project, with a student-led choice of projects offered by researchers closely associated with the CDT. (https://ljc.group.cam.ac.uk)
Interdisciplinary Nanoscience and Nanotechnology - PhD
From the Department of Physics
The vision of this PhD programme is to deliver bespoke cohort-based interdisciplinary training that promotes holistic problem-focused thinking for nanoscientists, drives new scientific directions, and impactful and responsible translation of research to technologies. A particular emphasis will be exposure to a broad range of world-class research environments to allow students to discover their individual research and technology interests and develop strong ownership of their PhD topic.
The first six months of the programme will provide advanced-level training, specifically designed for students, through an integrated lectures + practicals module on Applied Nanoscience, a module on System Integration for Experimentalists and one short and one longer experimental project prior to the final selection of an interdisciplinary PhD research project between two research groups in the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Materials Science or another relevant department within the University. An additional module on Innovation for Scientists will help students develop a wider perspective, including training on innovation, sustainability and responsible research.
Throughout the programme, there will be an environment that supports creativity, resilience, peer-to-peer learning, networking, and connectivity. The programme will offer professional skills training to support students on different career paths in industry, academia, and beyond, and it will help students discover and nurture their leadership approach in varied contexts. Cross-cohort events will include student-led conferences, research seminars, onsite and offsite research, career development workshops led by internal and external experts, and other activities.
Scientific Computing - MPhil
From the Department of Physics
The MPhil programme in Scientific Computing provides world-class education on high performance computing and advanced algorithms for numerical simulation at continuum and atomic-scale levels. The course trains early-career scientists in the use of existing computational software and in the underlying components of the simulation pipeline, from mathematical models of physical systems and advanced numerical algorithms for their discretisation, to object-oriented programming and methods for high-performance computing for deployment in contemporary massively parallel computers. As a result, course graduates have rigorous research skills and are formidably well-equipped to proceed to doctoral research or directly into employment. The highly transferable skills in algorithm development and high-performance computing make our graduates extremely employable in all sectors of industry, commerce and finance.
The MPhil in Scientific Computing is suitable for graduates from any discipline of natural sciences, technology or engineering, who have good mathematical and computational skills.
Superconductivity: Enabling Transformative Technologies EPSRC CDT - PhD
From the Department of Physics
This PhD course is part of the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) programme in Superconductivity: Enabling Transformative Technologies led by the University of Bristol.
The CDT will create a step change in superconductivity training in the UK by using a cohort-based approach to provide a diverse new generation of researchers with the interdisciplinary and teamwork skills required to develop transformative technologies needed to engineer Net-Zero, advance healthcare, and deliver novel quantum devices.
Bringing together the universities of Bristol, Oxford, and Cambridge, the CDT will deliver comprehensive graduate training across their Physics, Materials Science, Engineering, and Chemistry departments.
The programme will be co-delivered with partners encompassing industry, research facilities, and the educational sector. The CDT will serve as a vibrant hub for the wider UK superconductivity community, with the added value of providing training and networking opportunities to those outside of the CDT.
Sustainable Energy Materials Innovation - PhD
From the Department of Physics
The Sustainable Energy Materials Innovation PhD course at the University of Cambridge will provide diverse training in the design and discovery, development, scale-up, life-cycle analysis, and systems integration of advanced energy materials and devices in areas strongly guided by the needs of the ‘net-zero’ industry. It will train the future leaders needed for a rapid transition to a zero-carbon society and make transformational, incremental, and disruptive materials discoveries facilitating the energy transition.