There is a paradigm of the ideal product of Engineering training being a “T-shaped person” (see diagram): a combination of breadth of knowledge via the horizontal crosspiece and the vertical signifying the presence of at least one depth of specialist knowledge. This is what the CDT programme seeks to achieve.

The one-year MRes gives students time to absorb the context of Civil Engineering research, to learn tools and methods to support influential research and to identify the best supervisor for their interests. The successful completion of the MRes course leads to the award of an MRes degree and provides students with the necessary research skills and training to enable them to make an accelerated start to their PhD programme within the EPSRC CDT in Future Infrastructure and Built Environment.

Deep technical insight and new contributions to knowledge are at the heart of the PhD study. The overarching objective of the PhD programme is to equip CDT PhD students with a ‘habit of mind’ to apply core technical skills to find solutions throughout their professional career to problems they have never come across before.