A PhD partnership between the Durham Centre for Soft Matter and a South African Universities Soft Matter Community

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Soft matter and polymers are ubiquitous in modern life! Be it manufactured plastic products (polymers), food (colloids), paint and other decorative coatings (thin films and coatings), contact lenses (hydrogels), shampoo and washing powder (complex mixtures of the above) or biomaterials such as proteins and membranes, polymers and soft matter touch almost every aspect of human activity and underpin processes and products across all industrial sectors. In the UK for example - soft matter and polymers underpin industrial sectors which account for nearly 20% of UK GDP and over 1.1M UK employees. Soft matter and polymers are of fundamental social and economic value!In 2014 the Durham Centre for Soft Matter, as lead organization was awarded (with Leeds and Edinburgh Universities) an EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Soft Matter and Functional Interfaces (SOFI CDT) which will train, in total 80 PhD, students in five cohorts. The ambition of SOFI CDT is to provide a broad, multidisciplinary PhD training experience across all areas of soft matter science, with industry-focussed transferable skills and business awareness alongside a challenging PhD research project to enable graduating PhD students to have high impact careers in industry. The wider SOFI community comprises of a network of 15-20 industrial partners, from SMEs to multi-billion multinationals and a network of overseas academic partners, including Stellenbosch University (SU). A key activity for all SOFI CDT PhD students is the opportunity to participate in three-month PhD student exchanges with the overseas partners - starting in 2016. The current proposal will build a partnership between the Durham Centre for Soft Matter/SOFI CDT and the emerging polymer/soft matter community in South Africa with a key aim to offer a focal point for capacity building, enhanced collaboration and the development of a long-term, sustainable partnership. The Polymer Science group at Stellenbosch University is a recognized Centre of Excellence and pre-eminent Polymer Science group in Africa. As such, and given the established links to Durham University, it is best placed to coordinate the activities of the consortium of South African universities. At the heart of this new partnership will be students. 10 PhD students each from the UK and South Africa will undertake a 3-month research and training exchange visit hosted by a research group with complementary and relevant expertise. As part of the exchange program and alongside a short term research project the students will participate in; i) Annual Durham-SA research symposia in both countries at which staff and students will present their research.ii) Student-led outreach activities, in particular involving student visits to underprivileged schools in South Africa.iii) A program of social and cultural activitiesA more limited program of short staff exchange visits will promote a longer term partnership which will be sustained beyond the period of Newton Funding.We believe that the enhanced PhD experience will significantly benefit the students in question and offer them the skills and contacts required to be successful in an increasingly global research environment.