Britain’s Doctors of Innovation
Posted on December 7, 2008 Comments (0)

Minister of State for Science and Innovation, Lord Drayson, announced the £250million (about $370 million) initiative which will create 44 training centres across the UK and generate over 2000 PhD students. They will tackle some of the biggest problems currently facing Britain such as climate change, energy, our ageing population, and high-tech crime.
17 of the centers will put specific emphasis on integrating industrial and business skills with the PhD education. This approach to training has been extensively piloted by EPSRC through a small number of thriving Engineering Doctorate Centres and Doctoral Training Centres in Complexity Science, Systems Biology and at the Life Sciences Interface. This new investment builds on the success of these and will establish a strong group of centres which will rapidly establish a pre-eminent international reputation for doctoral training.
The multidisciplinary centres bring together diverse areas of expertise to train engineers and scientists with the skills, knowledge and confidence to tackle today’s evolving issues. They also create new working cultures, build relationships between teams in universities and forge lasting links with industry.
As I have said before I think countries are smart to invest in their science and technology futures. In fact I believe creating centers of science and technology excellence is a key to future economic wealth.
Full press release: £250 Million to Create New Wave of Scientists and Engineers for Britain
Related: UK Science and Innovation Grants – UK Science and Research Funding – New Engineering School for England – Basic Science Research Funding – Best Research University Rankings, 2008 (UK second to USA) – Britain’s big challenges will be met by doctors of innovation
Categories: Economics, Engineering, Funding, Science, Students
Tags: centers of excellence, economy, engineering education, Funding, graduate students, science education, UK
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