Materials 4.0 (EPSRC CDT) (Taught)

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2025). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.

Materials 4.0 EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) aims to train the new generation of doctoral scientists able to work across interfaces between machine learning, informatics, physical and cyber systems and modelling.

This cohort-based training programme offers a four-year doctoral course (eight-years if studying part-time) focusing on the digitalisation of materials research and innovation, to link the digital and physical via cyber-physical systems for prediction, classification, and control of material performance.

The set of skills you will acquire during the CDT will enable you to exploit new developments in high-throughput approaches for making, characterising and testing new materials to tackle a broad range of materials science challenges.

Materials 4.0 EPSRC CDT has been developed by a consortium led by the Henry Royce Institute together with seven Universities (Strathclyde, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College) and two national institutes (National Physical Laboratory and the Alan Turing Institute). The CDT has a large industrial base collaboration and most of the projects are with industrial partners.

Course structure
The CDT interleaves activities with ongoing research, building from basic learning to leadership over four years and is delivered using traditional (face-to-face) and modern (remote online) learning formats.

In the first two years as a full-time student (four years if studying part-time), you will learn core skills that will provide you with the personal toolkit required to conduct your research. In the last two years, (four years if studying part-time) you will take the lead in developing and delivering training materials for the younger students and become an advocate for the digitalisation of materials discovery and manufacturing in industry and academia.

The CDT is structured to allow you to engage with your research project immediately following a residential induction, during which you will begin to build intra- and inter-cohort cohesion. Early commencement of research gives you the opportunity to establish relationships with your supervisors, host research groups and industrial sponsors from the outset.