EPSRC CDT in Advanced Engineering for Personalised Surgery & Intervention

Surgery is recognised as an “indivisible, indispensable part of health care” but the NHS struggles to meet its rising demand. Tens of millions of surgeries take place every year in the UK, requiring a large percentage of the allocated healthcare budget. Innovation and new technologies are needed to ensure that costs, procedure, and hospitalisation times are reduced while improving outcomes. Our EPSRC CDT in Advanced Engineering for Personalised Surgery & Intervention will train this new generation of researchers and innovators that will undertake diverse engineering careers that deliver patient and economic impact through innovation in surgery & intervention.

Our EPSRC CDT will train research students in three methodological areas. Through training on Smart Instruments and Active Implants, our PhD students will learn to innovate on surgical robots, miniature imaging probes, and new materials for longer term use within the human body. Our Surgical Data Science theme will train PhD researchers to improve patient outcomes by developing artificial intelligence to assist practitioners during surgery, for example, by helping them to level up their expertise and perform consistently regardless of mental and physical fatigue. Finally, with PhD research training on Digital Surgical Twins, students will create computational replicas of patient-specific anatomy and conditions to inform surgeons about how to best tailor surgical strategies and guide them through the procedure to reduce the invasiveness and to select optimal devices for each patient.

Overview of the research themes of the EPSRC CDT AE-PSI

We offer scholarships to support student research and participation at national and international conferences. Our bespoke and evolving Student Doctoral Education Curriculum offers two pathways: (1) the Integrated PhD Training Pathway for students with research experience; and (2) the Master of Research + PhD Training Pathway, designed for promising candidates with technical or domain-specific gaps, addressed through the MRes in Healthcare Technologies in Year 1. All AE-PSI students will not only gain technical knowledge to underpin their research, but also training in quality management for medical device development, entrepreneurship skills for commercialisation, and a full understanding of the clinical translation pipeline.

In addition to strong industrial partnerships with key national and international companies, the EPSRC CDT AE-PSI is fully aligned with recent investments by King’s College London to create a powerhouse for Medical Devices in the UK and internationally. As such, critical to PhD student experience are the facilities of the Department of Surgical & Interventional Engineering, including a mock operating room fully kitted for cadaveric studies, the Wellcome/EPSRC facility for Manufacturing of Active Implants and Surgical Instruments, and the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering.

Facilities that span the full clinical translation will be accessible to EPSRC CDT AE-PSI cohorts

Applications are currently closed for October 2025 entry

When applications re-open, applicants should select the Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Science Research programme using the King’s Apply system. Please include the following with your application:

• A PDF copy of your CV should be uploaded to the Employment History section.
• A 500-word personal statement outlining your motivation for undertaking postgraduate research should be uploaded to the Supporting statement section.
• In your personal statement, please identify which one of our three research themes is of particular interest to you: 1) Smart Instruments & Active Implants; 2) Surgical Data Science; or 3) Digital Surgical Twins.
• Funding information: Please choose Option 5 “I am applying for a funding award or scholarship administered by King’s College London” and under “Award Scheme Code or Name” enter BMEIS_CDT AE-PSI. Failing to include this code might result in you not being considered for this funding.

Apply now

Applications closed Friday 28 February 2025 (23.59 GMT).

For more information, please see the programme’s dedicated website at www.surgerycdt.com or email sie-phd@kcl.ac.uk.