Industry Partners

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Chemical Biology - Empowering UK BioTech Innovation will be supported by one of the largest Chemical Biology communities in the world through the internationally leading Institute of Chemical Biology (>165 research groups) and Straegic Partners who are the foremost in: Therapeutics; Agri-science; Personal-care; Bio and Med-Tech; and key SME partners.

We are proud to be working with the industrial and SME partners to realise our bold new vision for Doctoral Training. These include:

  • ADC Therapeutics
  • Agilent Technologies
  • AstraZeneca
  • Bactobio
  • BASF
  • FA Bio
  • FreshCheck
  • GSK
  • IBM
  • Lewtas Science & Technologies Ltd
  • Micrographia Bio
  • Novartis Pharma
  • Nutropy
  • Oxford Nanopore Technologies
  • P&G
  • Syngenta
  • Ubiquigent
  • UCB
  • Vertex Pharmaceuticals
  • Woost 

We are always very excited to discuss new collaborations with potential Industrial or SME partners; examples of the way that companies can engage with the CDT are outlined below:

Co-funded studentships:

We co-fund studentships with our industry and SME partners

  • Our studentships follow a 1 year MRes + 3 year PhD
  • The research project starts in the MRes year and continues into the PhD, giving the student 4 years of training towards their selected project (in partnership with the project partner)
  • Our industry partners are involved (if they wish) with recruitment of students e.g. interviewing studentship candidates.

In-work PhD programme

  • Industry partner employees are able to take an “In-work PhD” with the CDT. 

Fully funded placement opportunities

  • Our CDT students take part in our EVOLVE placement programme, which is fully funded by the CDT.
  • This offers our Industry and SME partners the opportunity to host any CDT students for 2-3 months to undertake work that is not necessarily linked to the student’s PhD. 

ELEVATE Optional PDRA Fellowship Programme

  • In addition to the 1+3 MRes/PhD project, we are introducing the CDT Elevate Fellowship Scheme.
  • This scheme gives our industry partners the opportunity to extend existing research (e.g. translate the work undertaken during the PhD), or create new postdoctoral projects to recruit CDT graduates.
  • This PDRA programme provides mentoring & training that bridges the PhD-industry gap via bespoke training and in-work placements aimed at supporting knowledge transfer and R&D for our SME partners.

Visiting professor scheme:

  • We can help to facilitate opportunities for industry partners to take up Visiting Professor positions
  • Industry partners can have staff on site at the Molecular Science Research Hub at Imperial College.
  • Industry partners can access co-location spaces where staff can work alongside researchers at the Molecular Science Research Hub.

 Provision and access to Training: 

  • Industry and SME partners can if they wish help with training delivery and co-supervision e.g. industry innovation workshops – where students can learn about the impact of Chemical Biology and/or Lab of the Future platforms in an industry setting.
  • We offer access to a number of our CDT training activities to our SME partners  

Access to Equipment:

  • We can facilitate access for industry partners to state-of-the-art capital equipment and CDT technologies pre-commercialisation that can directly address bottlenecks in your R&D portfolio. 

Developing solutions:

  • Industry partners can feed challenges into InnovaLab Accelerator programme or become an Entrepreneur in Residence
  • We offer our industry partners access to the Challenge Wall, where ICB CDT Students and PIs address small/medium challenges put forward by industry partners
  • CDT Hackathons to undertake challenges suggested by industry/SMES

Networking to help establish and make new business contacts:

  • Our partners have access to >165 research groups that span 20 different departments and centres across Imperial, which brings together a larger depth and breadth of expertise.
  • We offer our partners access to our industry networking events, technology showcase, tech-foresight events and CDT funded Hackathons which are often themed around challenges proposed by industry.

Talent Pool:

  • We offer SMEs access to the talent pool (via joint recruitment events).

Membership of the research board:

  • We offer industry and SME partners the opportunity to contribute towards the research strategy of the ICB CDT through invited membership of the ICB Research Board 

For more information on the Institute of Chemical Biology EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training and its wider activities including further opportunities for collaboration please do not hesitate to contact us.