Delivering research excellence

The University of Southampton is currently training approximately 3,000 doctoral students, in fields from astronomy to zoology.

Southampton’s world-class research is providing real-world and global impact. PGRs are fundamental to increasing the speed and quality of that research, helping to find better solutions to the world’s biggest challenges, faster. We need the brightest minds to make the research breakthroughs of the future and continue to change the world for the better.

The REF is the UK’s system for assessing the excellence of research in universities and the main measure of the quality of research being done in the UK.  In some fields, postgraduate researchers (PGRs) co-authored up to 40% of research outputs in the last Research Excellence Framework (REF) leading to top 5 rankings.  PGRs are therefore the lifeblood of university research.

PGRs are making incredible discoveries in a diverse range of fields and specialisms. Explore just some of the world-class work being done by current PGRs at the University:

• A recent PhD Graduate was one of only 13 UK co-authors on the Nobel-prize-winning paper announcing the discovery of gravitational waves, confirming Einstein’s century-old theoretical conjecture but also opened up a new way of doing astronomy.
• Developing acoustic technology to detect poaching in game parks in Africa and undertaking a placement with the Zoological Society of London to integrate this technology into a real-time satellite reporting system.
• Co-developing a mathematical model to predict the behaviour of solar panels made from Perovskite – the fastest growing commercially attractive solar technology – leading to the rapid development of this renewable energy technology.
• Working with the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, the Smithsonian Institution, to analyse the skeletons of British soldiers killed in the Napoleonic Peninsular War to understand how they lived and died, transforming our understanding of social aspects of the period.
• Reconstructing a working model of a Winchester-based Anglo Saxon musical church organ to play music unheard for over a millennium, since the court of King Alfred.
• Discovering that the noise generated by jet engines obeys similar equations to gravitational waves from black holes – leading to a new understanding of a major source of aeroengine noise, which will inform noise pollution considerations in future engine design.
• Developing a new DNA technique to detect non-native species in local waters, collecting water and sediment and analysing the DNA content of each sample to determine which marine species had been present in the ecosystems. This pioneering PGR research work can be used to detect early invasions and so implement better control of ecosystems.
• Transforming the exploration landscape for Copper resources in Africa, leading to two of the world’s largest copper discoveries in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon and significant inward investment contributing to rapid economic growth in Zambia and boosted local employment.
• Deriving information about atmospheric pollution from optical satellite images, helping to monitor particulate matter air pollution (a worldwide problem, killing millions of people prematurely each year).

“Everything is hard before it is easy.” – Goethe

By definition doctoral study, involves pushing at the frontiers of knowledge.  Embarking on a doctorate, starting with a blank sheet is undoubtably a daunting prospect.   But the doctoral journey is not just academic.  It can literally take you to places you would never have visited, exchanging ideas with people you would never have met, giving people opportunities they otherwise would never have had.

The greatest breakthroughs often come from interactions between people who look at the same problems in fundamentally different ways.  It is thus vital that we open up doctoral research to as many talented and people as possible drawn from diverse backgrounds.

Southampton is typical for a highly ranked Russell Group research University in that only around a quarter of our doctoral researchers are funded by UKRI research councils, the main civilian funding route for research in the UK. The university itself funds around a sixth of its doctoral students, the rest of the cohort are either funded by (non-UKRI) external funders or self-fund.

The Presidential Scholarships scheme is the University’s flagship funding scheme for doctoral students.  It offers full scholarships (fees, stipend and a training grant) to exceptional students, from all backgrounds, nationalities and in all subject areas.   Anyone who applies to Southampton for a doctoral research degree is able to be considered for the scheme.  Competition is exceptionally fierce and to we are now actively looking to expand the number of scholarships that we can offer to as diverse a talent pool as possible to deliver even more world class research and global impact.