MPhil /PhD Research Degrees – Materials and Engineering Research Institute

Course structure

PhD (subject to confirmation)
Full-time – three years research, plus an optional year for writing up
Part-time – five years research, plus an optional year for writing up

MPhil
Full-time – two years research
Part-time – three years research

Split PhD
Students normally spend most of their time in their home country but come to the University for at least three months a year.

Typical modules may include

Research training

All doctoral researchers at Sheffield Hallam University have the opportunity to develop a range of research, personal and professional skills during the course of their programme. Transferable skills training as a key component of undertaking a PhD or professional doctorate is required by the University regulator, expected by research funders, and promoted by the University as part of its commitment to 'education for employment'.

Sheffield Hallam's approach

Sheffield Hallam recognises that all doctoral researchers arrive at the start of their programme with different experiences and career plans. Therefore doctoral skills training is, as far as possible, needs-based and individually-tailored. Rather than being required to complete a set training programme, each doctoral researcher's development needs are identified and jointly agreed with their supervisory team at the start of the degree, and these are regularly reviewed and updated as appropriate.

Training and development

An extensive range of training and development opportunities are available to doctoral researchers through the doctoral skills training series and MERI-based training.

MERI training:

Skills training for postgraduate research

This course will comprise 4 main sessions:

• getting the most out of supervision

• development needs analysis and personal development plans

• research integrity and intellectual property

• getting the most out of conferences

All of the sessions are mandatory for all MERI research students.

Weekly seminar programme

Speakers are invited weekly to discuss their latest research with our staff and students.

Research ethics

This session introduces you to the principle of research ethics and the Sheffield Hallam procedures for ethical clearance. It will also involve you doing an initial ethic checklist for your research project and introduce the online EPIGIUM module ethics 1, which all Sheffield Hallam research students must complete.

RefWorks

RefWorks is a web-based bibliographic system with which you can build up a database of all of your reference material. It is flexible and very powerful, particularly when it comes to outputting reference lists for papers and thesis.

Introduction to bibliographic databases

As a researcher it is vital to be able to access relevant high level information. Here you learn more sophisticated information retrieval skills and see how to use subject specific databases relevant to your research area.



Health and safety for postgraduate research

The session aims to provide clear health and safety guidelines for new postgraduate researchers around personal safety and safety of others within the university environment, including and laboratories & workshops.

Advanced measurement techniques

This module aims to equip you with the skills and knowledge to make informed decisions on experimental materials analysis techniques. A number of techniques are demonstrated, the emphasis being on what each can achieve and the potentials for synergy from combining results obtained using from different techniques. This promotes effective decision making in research planning and operation, as well as a broad understanding of what different approaches can be used for.

MATLAB

MATLAB is a powerful programming language for numerical computations. It is employed in a range of industrial and academic environments. MATLAB has numerous built-in functions for engineering, physical, graphical, mathematical and computing applications. Besides this it has a variety of specialised toolboxes for specific applications, such as control systems, machine vision, signal processing and many others. MATLAB also has the symbolic toolbox that allows operating on symbolic expressions. In the first sessions we will cover MATLAB fundamentals, and the following sessions will be tailored to the specific research needs of attendees.

MERI research symposium event

The MERI Research Symposium is an excellent opportunity for both staff and students who are either active researchers, or who are interested in engaging in research, to meet with colleagues from across the faculty, to raise awareness of current research projects. The event will incorporate talks from academic staff and second year MERI PhD students, with poster presentations from final year undergraduate engineering students and first year MERI students.

Poster preparation

This course is aimed at first year students to give tips and techniques on how to prepare for the MERI Research Symposium Event, at which they will present a poster.

Talk preparation

All second year students are required to give a talk at the MERI Research Symposium Event. This course is designed to give advice on preparing and delivering an effective research talk.

Doctoral skills training series

• teaching and lecturing courses (including the dedicated teaching skills for doctoral students course)

• SHaRD programme (research staff sessions, which doctoral researchers are welcome to access)

• library researcher sessions

• PGR skills workshops

• career management workshops

• online courses