The programme has the following aims:

• Produce science and engineering leaders with a high level of understanding and skills in sensor technology, in particular, the fundamentals of the field, together with the necessary systems and applications knowledge, and relevant hands-on skills.
• To produce leaders who understand sustainable practice and bring innovative solutions to pressing societal problems, for example, those relating to our changing environment and health.
• Encourage an appreciation of relevant technological opportunities for sensors and their networks, and the business, road-mapping and cost-analysis tools used to determine the adoption of new technological solutions.
• Encourage students to develop a strong understanding of responsible research and innovation specific to sensor technologies and applications. E.g. data privacy and ownership, trustworthiness of sensor information and unintended use of sensor technologies.
• Develop a strong business awareness in the MRes graduates for the commercialisation opportunities of sensors and related systems, and to foster an understanding of the connections between technology, management and entrepreneurship.
• Expose the students to a range of cognate sensor technologies and application areas, and to provide experience of a variety of different R&D cultures across the University, via a foundations lecture course, followed by more specialised lecture modules, interspersed with lab rotations, a research mini-project and a sensor team challenge for the whole cohort.
• Encourage students to work across scientific- and engineering-discipline boundaries, with a resultant enhancement of interdisciplinary understanding.
• Equip graduates of the programme with communication and outreach training, personal and development skills, as well as specific research training to enable them to be future technology leaders with excellent public engagement skills.

Learning Outcomes

The course aims to cover the full breadth of topics that encompass modern sensor research, including physical and biological concepts of sensing, sensor technologies, sensor-design principles, sensor networks, processing of sensory data, and sensor applications in the areas of healthcare and sustainable environments, society and economies.

In particular, the MRes and PhD parts of the course are designed to develop the following broad themes:

• Fundamentals of sensors and networked sensor systems, with special emphasis on sensor-fabrication, technology, electronics, and communications
• Concepts of, strategies for, and research skills in sensor-based device fabrication, system design and characterisation
• Hands-on research experience via University-based lab rotations, a guided sensor project, and a mini-research project, together with a sensor team challenge for the whole cohort, often set in collaboration with the industrial partners
• Concepts of responsible research and innovation
• Aspects of business, innovation, technology development and entrepreneurship
• Specialist know-how in the student's chosen PhD research area combined with cross-disciplinary knowledge
• Effective communication skills across academic and industrial sensor research and development.