Civil and Environmental Engineering PhD

Why choose this course

Your PhD will be conducted within one of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s world-class research groups. You’ll work to create smart and clean urban environments within the constraints of space and the challenges of ageing infrastructure.

By sharing resources with other departments across the University, we can support you in pursuing multi-disciplinary and multi-scale research. This spans traditional subject boundaries and enables science-led enquiry to create engineered solutions to industrially relevant problems, both nationally and globally.

You’ll also benefit from the Department’s excellent track record for graduate employability and the wide range of scholarships offered through its partnerships with leading companies.

What you will study

On this programme, your research will address the need for safe and sustainable environments in which we can all live and work. Your research can be about anything covered by one of our four research centres, or within the wider research interests in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.

You’ll be assigned two supervisors, who’ll guide you through your PhD and meet with you at least once a month. Your supervisors will be responsible for your progress, professional development and your personal welfare. They’ll also be able to support you with preparing your work for publication and when presenting to research seminars.

You’ll normally spend the first few months of your studies exploring the existing literature within your area of interest, and establishing the research question you’ll address. After your first year, you’ll take a confirmation exam, and produce a report setting out your research objectives, what you’ve done so far, and a plan for how you’ll complete your final thesis. Your final assessment will be on your written thesis, and by a viva examination with both internal and external examiners.

Applicants are expected to hold a first or upper-second class degree in a relevant discipline (or equivalent overseas qualification), or a lower second plus a good Masters degree (distinction normally required).