75 PhD workers will split their time between Ulster University and University College London doing doctoral research in digital health. The centre will provide specialist training to healthcare workers in emerging tech.
Ulster University is teaming up with University College London (UCL) to establish a dedicated centre to train health tech workers at a doctoral level. The two universities have secured funding from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to establish a Centre for Doctoral Training in Digital Health Technologies.
The centre, which will cost £11.7m, will recruit 75 PhD researchers specialising in digital health. It will be hosted jointly by UCL and Ulster University to provide training for workers in digital health technologies for the community-acute care (home-hospital) ecosystem.
Researchers will look into a whole range of different technologies for healthcare, such as materials, sensors, medical devices, human-computer interaction systems and behavioural science tech.
There will be PhD projects focusing on delivering solutions across four different ‘problem’ themes – diagnostics and prognostic conditions, treatment and care optimisation, tracking and monitoring diseases and sharing health data.
Splitting their time between Ulster and London
Researchers in the four-year PhD programmes will be registered at either Ulster University or UCL, splitting their time between the two institutions. Following an individual skills assessment, each researcher will be equipped with a personal training plan for their four-year programme of study. They will conduct a combination of group training across the research themes and a three-month secondment in an industry or healthcare setting.
The team at Ulster University team will be led by Prof Dewar Finlay, Prof Jim McLaughlin and Prof Brian Meenan from the School of Engineering; Prof Assumpta Ryan from the School of Nursing and Paramedic Science; and Prof Raymond Bond from the School of Computing.
“The centre is an exciting development as it provides the ideal vehicle to develop the next generation of highly skilled digital health researchers,” said Finly. “This comes at a critical time for us as we make significant investments in our research provision around digital health going forward. We are also delighted to have been able to strategically partner with UCL in this initiative and, in turn, leverage the significant combined track record in healthcare technology research across both institutions.”
The EPSRC’s investment in this centre is part of a wider, major push by the UK to invest in the future of its engineering and life sciences doctoral workers. The Ulster University and UCL partnership centre will be one of 65 centres for doctoral training.
Altogether, these centres will accommodate around 4,000 doctoral workers over the next eight years. They will focus on new and cutting-edge areas of tech, including quantum, semiconductors and AI.
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