Support and facilities

Support

The Faculty of Engineering has over 400 PhD students across its five academic Schools. The Engineering Graduate School Office and its sister office in the School of Computing supports this community.

The Graduate School Office provides a single friendly point of contact for any non-academic queries or problems you may have, from initial application through to final thesis submission. If we don't know the answer, we probably know who does!

The Graduate School Office provides:

- a single point of contact for research students;
- support and advice for administrative processes including registration, funding and thesis submission;
- a standard Code of Practice setting out our responsibilities and our expectations of students;
- an online meeting record system for supervisors and students;
- and access to the Faculty's Staff Common Room.

You will work with an academic Supervisor or supervisory team, providing guidance and support to the research project. You will also be associated directly with a Research Institute, which generally becomes your 'home base' and is a fairly small-scale community with whom you will interact on a day-to-day basis. All full-time students are provided with their own desk and computer.

As a research student within the Faculty of Engineering you will also have access to a broad programme of skills training and professional development to help you complete your research effectively and to keep you at the leading edge of developments in learning and teaching, innovation, enterprise and knowledge transfer to help you succeed in future employment.

If you require any further information please contact the Graduate School Office, e: phd@engineering.leeds.ac.uk, t: +44 (0)113 343 8000.

Facilities

As would be expected of the top-rated research School in the UK, with over 60 postgraduate research students from around the world, facilities to support study are of the highest standard.

We have an enviable array of multi-million pound research laboratories equipped with cutting edge technology covering the spectrum of our activities. We pursue a continuous programme of infrastructure refurbishment to ensure that our research is not only competitive internationally, but leading internationally.

For example, major investment has been made in new facilities in the areas of high frequency and wireless communications. The RF and microwave facilities include a range of network analysers, RF and microwave circuit laser prototyping, and ceramic circuit fabrication equipment. We host one of the world’s largest and best-equipped optical laboratories for terahertz frequency electronics and photonics. A new molecular beam epitaxy facility is available to fabricate advanced compound semiconductor optoelectronic devices. A large semiconductor cleanroom is used to fabricate and analyse nano-electronic devices, and includes sophisticated electron-beam lithography apparatus; in fact, a new, world-leading, £4.5M electron-beam lithography facility capable of sub-10-nm patterning will be commissioned in 2011.

The emerging field of molecular and biomolecular electronics is supported by a suite of new laboratories. Our new ultrasound laboratory is fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for ultrasound development and testing of biomedical applications. Experimental support is provided for our communication networks activities by a range of traffic generators and traffic analysers, FPGA development tools, sensor network test beds, and motorway-deployed test-beds.

All students are provided with high-quality office accommodation and receive a personal PC upon arrival. The School has a wireless network and a VPN network that allows you to connect when working off campus. The School provides a pleasant and friendly environment for research, with central university facilities nearby including the University’s library, which is one of the largest in the country with over three million items.