EPSRC CDT in Sensor Technologies and Applications in an Uncertain World

The first year is a Master of Research in Sensor Technologies and Applications, which gives students from any of its disciplines a common footing. In the Michaelmas term three taught modules cover the principles of sensing, machine learning for data-intensive science, and responsible research and inclusive innovation in an uncertain world. The rest of the year is research: two mini research projects and the Team Challenge, with a strong element of peer learning.

The Team Challenge is a three-month project on a topical sensing problem, run and led by the whole MRes cohort, with a brief from the teaching team and mentors from academia, industry and partner organisations. The MRes is also offered as a standalone course, but the funded CDT route is only the combined MRes and PhD.

In years two to four students carry out an interdisciplinary PhD project in one of Cambridge's departments, supervised by two academics from different departments. Where a conventional project might develop a new sensor or improve an existing one, Sensor CDT projects design and test the sensor with a clear application in mind, or apply existing sensors to a new problem. Past projects range from image processing for cancer diagnosis and an intelligent toilet to microfluidic monitoring of brain injury patients and carbon transfer in the Himalaya after the 2015 Nepal earthquake.

Projects and supervisors are chosen during the MRes year with the centre's help, so applicants do not propose one. Throughout the four years students take part in continuous training: workshops on presentation and scientific writing, industry talks, sensor cafes, away days, a student-run one-day conference, training in entrepreneurship, policy and ethics, and the annual Sensors Day, which in 2026 is on sensors in industry.

The centre awards about ten EPSRC studentships a year, for eligible home students and a limited number of overseas students. Each covers University fees at the home rate, a maintenance grant at the UKRI rate (the amount for October 2027 is still to be confirmed), which is free of income tax and national insurance, and a research training support grant. EPSRC funding does not cover overseas fees, but the University can provide bursaries to cover the difference. Eligible applicants are considered for EPSRC funding automatically, and can also be considered in the University funding competition, which includes Gates Cambridge, Harding and the Cambridge Trust.

The centre recruits from the natural sciences, engineering, computer science and medicine, and applicants normally need a first or upper second-class honours degree or equivalent. It looks for intellectual curiosity beyond your own discipline, eagerness to work in cross-disciplinary teams and a wish to use science to improve the world, and it encourages applications from under-represented groups. The centre is on the government's TechFirst list, which can add a top-up of up to 10,000 pounds a year to the stipends of eligible home students.