Industrial Doctorate Centre: Molecular Modelling & Materials Science

伦敦大学学院（UCL）的分子建模和材料科学工业博士中心（M3 S）培训材料科学和工业重要应用模拟的研究人员。由于分子水平的结构和物理化学过程在很大程度上决定了任何材料的宏观性质，因此对这种纳米尺度行为的定量研究对于复杂功能材料的设计和工程至关重要。M3 S IDC是一个高度多学科的4年EngD计划，它与大量的工业赞助商合作开展各种项目，从催化到薄膜技术，电子，软件工程和生物物理研究。该中心的四个主要研究主题是1）能源材料和催化; 2）信息技术和软件工程; 3）智能材料纳米工程;和4）制药和生物医学工程。这些研究领域完全符合EPSRC的使命计划：能源，数字经济和纳米科学通过工程应用。此外，根据定义，工业博士中心对EPSRC的优先领域“确保未来人口供应和更好地开发”非常重要。学生在M3 S IDC遵循量身定制的专业技术课程教学计划，以及专业认证的项目管理课程和可转移的技能培训，这确保了无论他们的第一个学位，完成所有学生都将获得全面的技术和管理教育以及博士研究学位。EngD研究是行业主导的，具有与更成熟的博士研究学位相当的高质量和创新。然而，由于EngD学生花费大约70%的时间在工业赞助商的现场，他们也获得了成功，竞争激烈的行业的苛刻研究环境的第一手经验。在EngD计划的第一阶段，工业合作伙伴利用机会在其研发团队中增加了一名EngD研究员，包括约翰逊万丰、皮尔金顿玻璃、埃克森美孚、硅图、科瑞和STS，而每年都会有新的公司加入赞助商行列。UCL的材料研究特别发达，有一个蓬勃发展的材料研究中心和一个新成立的材料化学中心。此外，Bloomsbury校区可能是英国最大的计算材料科学家集中地，如果不是世界的话。虽然隶属于不同的UCL部门，所有计算材料研究人员都是UCL材料模拟实验室的成员，该实验室积极推动通用计算方法的发展，并鼓励成员之间的合作研究。因此，UCL拥有一支由100多名研究活跃的学术人员组成的庞大团队，可用于监督研究项目，确保所有工业合作伙伴都能够与相关研究领域的学术人员合作，形成与EngD学生合作的监督团队。现有的M3 S工业博士中心的成功和明显的潜力，扩大其研究范围和工业合作伙伴关系到新的，专题材料科学领域，这是在EPSRC的战略资助优先事项的心脏，在不久的将来，导致了这个建议的资金5个年度队列的10名EngD学生在该中心的新阶段从2009年。

The Industrial Doctorate Centre in Molecular Modelling and Materials Science (M3S) at University College London (UCL) trains researchers in materials science and simulation of industrially important applications. As structural and physico-chemical processes at the molecular level largely determine the macroscopic properties of any material, quantitative research into this nano-scale behaviour is crucially important to the design and engineering of complex functional materials. The M3S IDC is a highly multi-disciplinary 4-year EngD programme, which works in partnership with a large base of industrial sponsors on a variety of projects ranging from catalysis to thin film technology, electronics, software engineering and bio-physics research. The four main research themes within the Centre are 1) Energy Materials and Catalysis; 2) Information Technology and Software Engineering; 3) Nano-engineering for Smart Materials; and 4) Pharmaceuticals and Bio-medical Engineering. These areas of research align perfectly with EPSRC's mission programmes: Energy, the Digital Economy, and Nanoscience through Engineering to Application. In addition, per definition an industrial doctorate centre is important to EPSRC's priority areas of Securing the Future Supply of People and Towards Better Exploitation. Students at the M3S IDC follow a tailor-made taught programme of specialist technical courses, as well as professionally accredited project management courses and transferable skills training, which ensures that whatever their first degree, on completion all students will have obtained thorough technical and managerial schooling as well as a doctoral research degree. The EngD research is industry-led and of comparable high quality and innovation as the more established PhD research degree. However, as the EngD students spend approximately 70% of their time on site with the industrial sponsor, they also gain first hand experience of the demanding research environment of a successful, competitive industry. Industrial partners who have taken up the opportunity during the first phase of the EngD programme to add an EngD researcher to their R&D teams include Johnson Matthey, Pilkington Glass, Exxon Mobil, Silicon Graphics, Accelrys and STS, while new companies are added to the pool of sponsors each year. Materials research in UCL is particularly well developed, with a thriving Centre for Materials Research and a newly established Materials Chemistry Centre. In addition, the Bloomsbury campus has perhaps the largest concentration of computational materials scientists in the UK, if not the world. Although affiliated to different UCL departments, all computational materials researchers are members of the UCL Materials Simulation Laboratory, which is active in advancing the development of common computational methodologies and encouraging collaborative research between the members. As such, UCL has a large team of well over a hundred research-active academic staff available to supervise research projects, ensuring that all industrial partners will be able to team up with an academic in a relevant research field to form the supervisory team to work with the EngD student. The success of the existing M3S Industrial Doctorate Centre and the obvious potential to widen its research remit and industrial partnerships into new, topical materials science areas, which are at the heart of EPSRC's strategic funding priorities for the near future, has led to this proposal for the funding of 5 annual cohorts of ten EngD students in the new phase of the Centre from 2009.