PhD Placements and Internships

  • PhD Placement

    Most of our students have an industry partner for their PhD. These students will have a primary supervisor from STOR-i and a second supervisor from industry. This unique and exciting feature of the STOR-i programme gives you a range of career benefits.

  • PhD Internship

    Students working on a strategic PhD will have the opportunity to complete an industry internship during their studies.

Placements

Industrial placements are primarily about collaborating with the industrial partner on your ongoing research work. These visits allow you to continue your work with a different angle on your supervision. Critically it will allow you to ensure that your research has a real impact and to see the practical benefits of your research for the industrial partner.

The chance to visit and work in our industrial partners’ offices will help you to develop important skills such as effective communication with team members outside of the STOR discipline. You will see how a harmonious industrial research team works in practice. The networking experience gained from these collaborations provide long-term benefits to your career, making you both highly employable and an ideal future collaborator.

STOR-i’s training programme is designed to prepare our students for exactly this type of activity. The MRes year ensures you are prepared to deal with the challenges of working in collaboration with industry and while on placement. During your PhD, additional courses will continue to develop these skills through group work.

Placements tend to vary strongly between partner and projects. Typically, students spend between 1-2 months a year at the partner’s offices. These visits can be many short 1-2 day visits, visits of two weeks, or one longer visit. All approaches have their different advantages and all are valid. Partner institutions will be responsible for covering the costs of your travel and accommodation during these visits. Additionally the industrial supervisor is likely to visit you at regular intervals to discuss progress on the project with yourself and your academic supervisor.

Find out more about our current industrial partners.

Find out how to become a STOR-i industrial partner.

Internships

STOR-i students have undertaken internships lasting from one to six months at companies including: Amazon, BT, Coeliac UK, EDF Energy, Google, Office for National Statistics, and Tesco.

Here you can read about two of our current students' internship experiences:

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