What is EngD? How to be a Researcher and Manager at the same time

The Doctor of Engineering or Engineering Doctorate (EngD) is a four-year postgraduate program. The EngD is an alternative to the traditional PhD with more vocational orientation. The main difference with PhD is that EngD’s focus is to provide solutions to challenging engineering problems in an industrial context; this is the reason engineers pursuing EngD spends 75% of their time at companies but not at academic institutes. Unlike PhD, EngD is offered only in UK introduced by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in 1992. 

How it is funded

The EPSRC provides fund in following two ways,

Industrial Studentship

This is for already working engineers in a company increasing their pay by £10k p.a.

EngD Fellowships

This is most common way to fund EngD where a scholar gets £15,700 p.a. tax free stipend and tuition fee at UK/EU rate.

 Funding for International Students

Mostly above two forms of funding are reserved for UK/EU students. Here we will speak of how one can get funded as an international student. More than 90% of EngD fellowships are open for international students too, with the same amount of stipend but tuition fee at UK/EU rate. If selected it’s the responsibility of student to arrange for difference between international and domestic fee rate (around £11,000 p.a. to £14,000 p.a.) depending on program and University.

There are couple of things an international student can do, besides availing EngD fellowship, try to get some University scholarship towards tuition fee which is not very tough to avail but number of such scholarships are limited. Second possibility is to find a relevant Professor in a University and ask him if he can pay the fee difference. If none of these work at first, one may arrange for the difference in fee and join the program. Once you are in UK, it’s easy to coordinate with professors and also based on your first year’s performance you can avail many scholarships available at university level for current students (Result based scholarships for current students are easy to get than newly admitted few scholarships).

 The Program

This program is suitable for those engineers who want to enhance their research skills at a postgraduate level and yet do not want to choose academia as a profession. Engineering degree is enough to get you a job in industry and excel but to lead or innovate, sometimes research degrees give you an edge. The EngD program is designed in a way, to contribute in academic research and produce a thesis but it also give you a chance to enhance your professional and managerial skills, sometimes by hands on training in industry or joining some business oriented classes at school. 

[Differences between PhD and EngD]

Eligibility

These programs are open to engineering graduates depending on your major area of research. There is no need of MS degree to get admission in EngD program so we can term it as a quick way to get a doctorate degree. The important thing as always, you need to prove your research ability and convince selection committee.

How to find a program

 There are multiple ways to find EngD programs. First, mostly collaborating labs or Universities publish them, therefore browse through Universities and research centers. Since its an industry oriented program companies also advertise this on their websites, find major companies in your area of research, for example if you are a telecom major, check British Telecom website and so on. Lastly there are some forums for EngD programs like Association of Engineering Doctorates which gather most of positions.

Strengths

·         Research and commercial training at the same time

·         Industrial training while doing research

·         See your work in industry immediately

·         Preparing managers/leaders

Who should take this?

 Suitable for graduate research engineers who expect to progress to industrial positions at senior management or chief executive level. The program combines research in engineering at doctoral level with training in the skills needed to develop, assess and market technological products or processes.