Why sponsor?

New products, new materials, new services .... Better employees, new intellectual property, competitive advantages .... All from working with industry-leading academic institutions.

Engineering doctorate (EngD) research is directly related to the needs of UK business, with over 400 industry sponsors already involved. Case studies show sponsors achieve real business benefits, including the development of profitable new products, materials and services. Strong relationships with academic institutions can also underline a company's corporate social responsibility.

Industry sponsors justify their EngD involvement...

"The benefits to us of sponsoring Engineering Doctorate research students are multiple: we can grow our own experts who at the same time influence and inspire those working around them, facilitating an exchange of ideas and knowledge. We also get the opportunity to build a relationship with the university where we can interact with a number of academics, engendering discussion on a range of topics and opportunities while bringing academic rigour to the research process." (Andrew Cripps, Buro Happold - Read more...)

"As industrial sponsors, we find the Engineering Doctorate the most cost-effective model for achieving our combined research and specialist postgraduate recruitment requirements. In addition, in our work with the Bristol Systems Centre we have got particular value from aligning the work of several of our sponsored EngDs under an umbrella project which is part of our strategic process improvement activity. In this way the EngDs are able to provide considerable value to Thales during the period of their studies, meet a wide spectrum of people at all levels in the company, and they and their supervisors get access to real world data (both quantitative and qualitative) across a portfolio of several hundred projects." (Paul Davies, Head of Systems Research, Thales Research and Technology, Thales UK)

"Sponsoring an EngD has already proven to be a great success. After only 6 months we have reduced raw material costs on one of our new product lines by nearly 20%. We have gained a huge amount of specialist knowledge that we can transfer across the whole of our business, to improve design, reduce waste and costs. (Guy Atkins, Technical Director, Jo Bird & Co Ltd)