How to apply - Water-WISER CDT

Studentships

Studentships consist of a 4-year stipend paid monthly (at EPSRC standard rates, rising each year: e.g. for the academic year 2022/2023 the stipend is £17,668 tax-free). All fees are paid. A maximum sum of £20,000 over 4 years is available for fieldwork and laboratory costs; this could increase if a sector partner is involved in co-funding the project.

International students are eligible for a full scholarship (stipend and fees paid, plus fieldwork costs) though a maximum of 3 places are available.

In addition to other applications, we have three specific projects we wish to recruit students to for this round of recruitment for the Water-WISER CDT programme:

1 – Investigating the effectiveness of ‘Drinking Water Safety Planning’ for future smart water systems

Technology is developing at a rapid pace, providing significant opportunities to improve how we live and work in the world. The development of IoT, cloud data and analytics, and machine learning/AI, have significant potential to help in the monitoring and management of drinking water and wastewater systems. Although water utilities are beginning to embrace these technologies and seeing improvements in parts of their networks, there are still big gaps in the knowledge of what to do with all this new data and improve performance. Riskoa Ltd, in collaboration with Northumbria Water Ltd, are developing a centralised information management system that is based on the WHO endorsed, and now DWI regulated, Drinking Water Safety Planning methodology, with the potential to integrate a number of technologies and sensors to provide a more centralised way of managing water system safety and performance.

Click here to find out more about the above project.

2 – Intermediate dark fermentation as a platform technology for chemical recycling and biorefineries in the water sector

This exciting fully funded PhD, with an enhanced stipend of £20,000 per annum, will investigate resource recovery opportunities from sewage sludge with dark fermentation as core enabling technology. Current state of the art for sludge treatment is focussed on biogas and digestate generation via anaerobic digestion, as sources of renewable energy and organic fertilizers, respectively. This project works collaboratively with UK water utilities to identify and develop alternative value propositions, investigating the role of dark fermentation in transitioning sludge treatment centres into true biorefineries, where available carbon can be recovered and used for wastewater treatment or converted into high value chemicals for external use.

Click here to find out more about the above project.

3 – Electrochemical and paper-microfluidics detection for monitoring water disinfection

The exciting PhD opportunity was funded by EPSRC CDT WISER and industry partners (expertise in biosensors manufacturing and disinfection for water treatment). We are offering a fully funded national PhD studentship covering tuition fees, competitive stipend, research and consumables, and travel for international conference. The candidate will be working with a highly interdisciplinary and international team to develop the advanced sensors technology (e.g., electrochemical and paper microfluidics) for rapid monitoring of chemicals and microbiological contaminants and disinfection process during water treatment process. The candidate is welcome to apply with a background or an interest but not limited to biosensors, microfluidics, analytical chemistry, environment science, molecular biology, microbiology and engineering science.

Click here to find out more about the above project.

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You may find the resources below useful:

Apply online

Applications are open for September 2023 entry, and will remain open until places are filled. For more information or to apply online, please click here.

For any application queries please contact the Centre Manager j.mckay@leeds.ac.uk