Abstract
The Water Informatics in Science and Engineering Centre for Doctoral Training (WISE CDT) offers a postgraduate programme that fosters enhanced levels of innovation and collaboration by training a cohort of engineers and scientists at the boundary of water informatics, science and engineering. The WISE CDT was established in 2014 with funding from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) amongst the universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter. The WISE CDT will ultimately graduate over 80 PhD candidates trained in a non-traditional 4-year UK doctoral programme that integrates teaching and research elements in close collaboration with a range of industrial partners. WISE focuses on cohort-based education and equips the PhD candidates with a wide range of skills developed through workshops and other activities to maximise candidate abilities and experiences. We discuss the need for, the structure and results of the WISE CDT, which has been ongoing from 2013-2022 (final year of graduation). We conclude with lessons learned and an outlook for PhD training, based on our experience with this programme.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2721–2738 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 20 May 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Funding
Acknowledgements. We gratefully acknowledge additional funding and support from our many academic and industry partners. We thank Alyssa Serlet and the anonymous reviewer for their constructive criticism that helped to improve the paper. hanced levels of innovation and collaboration to train a cohort of engineers and scientists at the boundary of water informatics, science and engineering. Disciplinary breadth, a focus on PhD candidate cohort experience and collaborative effort (not least between four research-intensive UK universities in delivering the programme) are its key novel features. The WISE CDT was established in 2014 with funding from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and led by the University of Exeter in partnership with the universities of Bath, Bristol and Cardiff. The WISE CDT inducted its first cohort of PhD candidates in October 2014, and thus far it has recruited 84 candidates and graduated 26 (as of April 2021). The final group of candidates was recruited in 2018 and is expected to graduate in 2022 (Fig. 2). The initial principal investigator was Professor Dragan Savic (2014–2018), and now it is Professor David Butler. Here we describe the programme, show some selected educational elements and discuss what the WISE CDT has achieved so far.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Bristol and Cardiff | |
| Cardiff and Exeter | |
| Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council | EP/L016214/1 |
| University of Exeter |
Keywords
- Water Science
- Water Engineering
- Informatics
- Postgraduate Education
- Research
- Doctoral Training
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Chemical Engineering (miscellaneous)
- Computers in Earth Sciences
- Computer Science Applications
- Information Systems
- Environmental Engineering
- Water Science and Technology
