Programme Timeline

Students spend much of their time in our Franklin Hub at Harwell to learn from our scientists and use the state-of-the-art instrumentation and facilities.

As the Franklin does not hold degree-awarding powers, students will be registered in their first year with our training partner, University of Edinburgh. Students will engage in courses with Edinburgh and Franklin training for general research and science-specific skills across our departments. During rotations in diverse scientific areas, students are encouraged be more open to interdisciplinary science for impactful, creative approaches to their future work. Students then spend time meeting potential supervisors and discussing projects prior to selection at the end of the first term. The initial starting point for the projects will come from a catalogue of ideas contributed by our UK university partners.

In the second term, the first-year students will develop a 12-week research project related to their PhD project, these will be highly innovative projects centred around the Franklin technologies co-developed by the students, university academics and Franklin scientists. These 12-week research project will form the basis for the students PhD projects and allow the students to have a better understanding of project activity and directions early on.

Following successful evaluation of the proposed PhD project, students will then transfer their registration to their primary university supervisor’s institution for Years 2-4, which will become the awarding body for their degree (e.g. if a student’s primary external supervisor is based at University of Manchester, this will become the awarding university for their PhD).