PhD Engineering

An Integrated PhD provides a route into research study if you do not have a Masters degree, or have very little research training. It enables you to spend your first year completing a Masters-level qualification, followed by a full-time PhD studied over 3-4 years. We also offer a ‘standard’ PhD in this subject which can be studied either full-time (3-4 years) or part-time (6-7 years).

The first year on our Integrated PhD Engineering, enables you to acquire the essential knowledge, skills, competency, and critical awareness necessary for a rewarding career in the electronics industry. We prepare you for a career in analogue and digital circuit design, an area with a major skills shortage worldwide and particularly in the UK.

The content of your first year is far-reaching and includes theory, practice, simulation and realisation underpinned by our 40 years of expertise in electronics and telecommunications. All of your acquired knowledge culminates in a project which sees the design, simulation, construction, testing and manufacture of a complex electronic system aimed at the industrial or consumer markets.

In your second year you move into the PhD element of the course. Our research activity and supervision for this course is concentrated in the following principal research areas: audio and video networking, multimedia architectures and applications, data communications and networking, RF engineering, radio, radar and electromagnetics, propagation, video, image processing and computer vision. Our cross-disciplinary projects draw on the expertise of our electronic engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists and psychologists.

Our research covers a range of topics, from semiconductor device physics, the theory of computation and the philosophy of computer science, computational intelligence and computer games, to artificial intelligence and robotics, with most of our research groups based around laboratories offering world-class facilities. Our impressive external research funding stands at multi-million pounds per year and we participate in a number of EU initiatives and undertake projects under contract to many outside bodies, including government and industrial organisations.

Our School is a community of scholars leading the way in technological research and development. Today’s electronic engineers are creative people who are focused and committed, yet restless and experimental. We are home to many of the world’s top engineers, and our work is driven by creativity and imagination as well as technical excellence.

Our expert staff

We have been one of the leading electronic engineering departments in the country throughout our history, and in recent years, our prolific research staff have contributed to some major breakthroughs.

We invented the world's first telephone-based system for deaf people to communicate with each other in 1981, with cameras and display devices that were able to work within the limited telephone bandwidth. Our academics have also invented a streamlined protocol system for worldwide high speed optical communications.

Undertaking the PhD element of this course involves person-to-person interaction with your supervisor, who will guide you in developing your chosen research topic, refine your research skills, and advise you in capitalising on the technical knowledge you already have from your taught degree. Supervisors often keep in touch with their PhD graduates throughout their careers, and may work on scientific collaborations with them after they finish their doctorate.

Specialist facilities

We are one of the largest and best resourced computer science and electronic engineering schools in the UK. Our work is supported by extensive networked computer facilities and software aids, together with a wide range of test and instrumentation equipment.

• We have six laboratories that are exclusively for computer science and electronic engineering students. Three are open 24/7, and you have free access to the labs except when there is a scheduled practical class in progress
• All computers are dual boot Windows 10 and Linux. Apple Mac Computers are dual boot MacOS and Windows 10
• Software includes Java, Prolog, C++, Perl, Mysql, Matlab, DB2, Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, and Project
• Students have access to CAD tools and simulators for chip design (Xilinx) and computer networks (OMNet++)
• We also have specialist facilities for research into areas including non-invasive brain-computer interfaces, intelligent environments, robotics, optoelectronics, video, RF and MW, printed circuit milling, and semiconductors

Your future

Studying within our School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering provides both the recent graduate and the practising engineer with the opportunity to gain new skills or enhance existing ones.

There are career opportunities for well-qualified electronics design engineers in the avionics, automotive, entertainment and consumer product markets, and within companies such as Siemens, Fujitsu, Sony, Toshiba, Nokia, Samsung, LG, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Sharp, Canon, Acer, Lenovo, Hitachi, Epson, Philips, Nikon, Pioneer, TCL, and JVC, all of whom are searching for competent designers.

A number of careers are also available through local SMEs, geographically close to Essex, who account for a significant proportion of the workforce, both in the UK and on the continent.

Our graduates have progressed to a variety of senior positions in industry and academia. Some of the companies and organisations where our former graduates are now employed include: Electronic Data Systems, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Bank of Mexico, Visa International, Hyperknowledge (Cambridge), Hellenic Air Force, ICSS (Beijing), United Microelectronic Corporation (Taiwan), Alcatel Submarine, BT Group, QinetiQ, Dolby Laboratories, Fujitsu, Royal Air Forces, and within our University and Imperial College, London.

We also work with the University’s Careers Services to help you find out about further work experience, internships, placements, and voluntary opportunities.

Read more about computer science and electronic engineering career destinations here.

UK entry requirements

A good honours degree, or international equivalent, in a relevant Engineering field such as Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Networks, communications Engineering, Mechatronic Systems/Engineering, Robotic Engineering, Computer Systems Engineering, Mathematics or Physics.

Our four year integrated PhD, allows you to spend your first year studying at Masters level in order to develop the necessary knowledge and skills and to start your independent research in year two.

English language requirements

Course structure

Most of our taught courses combine compulsory and optional modules, giving you freedom to pursue your own interests. All of the modules listed below provide an example of what is on offer from the current academic year. Our Programme Specification provides further details of the course structure for the current academic year.

Our research-led teaching is continually evolving to address the latest challenges and breakthroughs in the field. The course content is therefore reviewed on an annual basis to ensure our courses remain up-to-date so modules listed are subject to change.

The research element of your degree doesn't have a taught structure, giving you the chance to investigate your chosen topic in real depth and reach a profound understanding. In communicating that understanding, through a thesis or other means, you have a rare opportunity to generate knowledge. A research degree allows you to develop new high-level skills, enhance your professional development and build new networks. It can open doors to many careers.

We understand that deciding where and what to study is a very important decision for you. We’ll make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the courses, services and facilities as described on our website. However, if we need to make material changes, for example due to significant disruption, or in response to COVID-19, we’ll let our applicants and students know as soon as possible.

Teaching

• Our taught modules provide a thorough and up-to-date knowledge of the theory, methods and applications of computer science
• Core components combined with optional modules, to enable you to gain either in-depth specialisation or a breadth of understanding
• Our postgraduates are encouraged to attend conferences and seminars, as well as engage with the wider research community

Assessment

• Our first-year taught modules are assessed on the results of your written examinations, together with continual assessments of your practical work and coursework

Dissertation

Within our School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, your PhD thesis is generally completed within three to four years and has a length of around 80,000 words.

Your PhD is awarded after your successful defence of your thesis in an oral examination, in which you are interviewed about your research by two examiners, at least one of whom is from outside Essex.