Programme structure

• The taught component is critical to welcome and develop applicants from different STEM backgrounds, to build up key skills and to benefit from being training as part of a diverse and inclusive cohort.
• The research component starts from day 1 and becomes increasingly dominant in your PhD over the years.
• Opportunities for formal continuous professional development (CPD) are open throughout the project, with more choice in elective courses in later years.

SPADS also includes a suite of cohort development activities including summer schools, participation in industry challenges and a hackathon. These elements are all explained in more detail below.

1. The taught component

SPADS students take 180 credits’ (Cr) worth of courses, of which: a) 60Cr form a compulsory core of courses that include 20Cr of courses co-created with industry to cover bespoke CPD needs for a successful career in the defence & security sector, b) 80Cr are chosen as electives, and c) 20Cr are obtained in the form of a placement.

1.1 Core courses 

The core courses are designed to provide a solid, common competency in key, highly transferable skills and link together all students in the programme via a common language and basis for being professional engineers. These include:

Year 1

• Research Methods for Sensing, Processing and AI Systems: Knowing how to access and assess the quality of information, as well as understanding the context of research and how it interacts with business, ethics and security are key skills for any defence engineer. This course covers all these aspects and is industry-led.
• Introduction to sensing and measurement: This course consists of five modules, each addressing an individual application topic, covering a range of technologies from the well-established to the novel. The modules are designed and delivered with partner organisations.
• Software testing/Programming Skills/Software Development: Designing code for high quality, safety-critical systems is no small endeavour, and to develop the requisite skills you will take one of these courses, dependent on your previous experience. 

Year 2 

• Case Studies in AI Ethics: Artificial intelligence (AI) is being deployed in real-world settings more than before. The course gives an overview of the ethical issues (e.g. bias, fairness, privacy) and students develop their understanding of data ethics by analysing case studies to identify and mitigate potential risks considering legal, social, ethical or professional issues.
• Sensors and Sensing for Defence and Complex Defence and Security Systems are delivered by both academics and our partners, following the summer school model. These defence-specific modules give students a unique, industrially focused training experience.

1.2 Elective courses

The 100+ elective courses, drawn from both universities, are organized into specialist themes to help you focus and develop your research career:

• Systems engineering and interfaces – learning how to create large and complex systems: Includes 30+ systems engineering courses such as “biologically inspired computation”, “robot systems science”, and “systems thinking and practice”, but also includes systems engineering related topics such as programming courses spanning all levels (python to threaded, secure, and industrial programming). The interfaces element covers courses from database design and numerical computational methods for high-performance computing.
• Communication systems and RF engineering – building intelligent, adaptive, and multifunctional communications systems: A set of 10+ courses including “Digital Communications”, “Coding Techniques”, “Wireless Communications”, “Array Processing & MIMO systems”, “Embedded Mobile and Wireless Systems”, “RF Engineering”, “RF & Microwave Circuits and Systems”, and “Information Theory”. Electives from this theme provide a strong foundation for research in information communication, extraction, and delivery of signals in complex and congested electromagnetic environments.
• Signal processing, machine learning and algorithms – inventing the AI algorithms of tomorrow: 25+ engineering-oriented courses from “digital signals analysis”, “ML in signal processing”, and “image processing”, through to computer science-oriented courses in the “algorithmic foundations of data science”, “applied ML”, “probabilistic modelling and reasoning”, and “RL”. Mathematics courses  include “Bayesian Data Analysis & Theory”, “Fundamentals of Optimisation”, “Numerical probability and Monte Carlo simulation”.
• Sensors and sensing – building the eyes, ears, and skins of military hardware: From the attire of the future soldier to drones, sensors are going to be key components; (radar) RF, electro-optical and infra-red video and lidar sensors, acoustic, vibration, neuro-inspired sensing, quantum, gyroscopes, moisture, pressure, and hyper-spectral imaging. This area is covered by courses such as “Applications of Sensor & Imaging Systems”, “Sensors and Instrumentation”, “Adaptive Signal Processing”, Computer Science and Mathematics (“Advanced Vision”, “Optimisation” & “Deep Learning for Imaging and Vision”), further supported by courses linking the fundamentals of sensors with AI (“ML and Pattern Recognition”, “Neural Information Processing”).
• AI hardware design – designing the next generation of electronics: The profile of computation in AI workloads is so different from conventional Von Neumann-based hardware that there has been an explosive growth in AI hardware accelerator innovations. This involves significant electronics design from tailor-made integrated circuits, through reconfigurable system development (e.g. FPGAs) all the way to embedded system design. This theme offers 10+ courses -including substantial laboratory practice- covering all levels of design, such as “Analogue IC” and “Circuit design”, “Analogue VLSI”, “Embedded Mobile and Wireless Systems”, and “Digital Systems laboratories”. The objective of this theme is to train engineers capable of building large-scale, production-quality AI hardware systems that can deliver the computational scale and efficiency required by defence applications and meet regulatory requirements.

Remember: interdisciplinary research may lead you to multiple themes and if in doubt, your future PhD supervisor and programme representative can advise on your choice of electives.

The 2025/26 list of electives for UoE and HWU can be viewed below. These are subject to change for subsequent years.

UoE electives for 2025/26

HWU electives for 2025/26

The placement will occur at a partner organisation. This is likely to be industry (incumbent or start-up), but it may also be a government agency or even an academic institution, depending on your career aspirations and trajectory. Its objective is to provide you with on-the-job training and connect you with potential future employers and/or collaborators.

2. The research project

In your research project you will tackle a challenge by producing new knowledge, theoretical, practical or mixed, and then document it by publishing in academic journals, your final project thesis, but also a series of other documents that may be required by your industrial sponsor or other stakeholders. At the end of your PhD you will be examined by a set of at least two examiners who are experts in your chosen field via a standard “viva voce” examination where you will have the opportunity to showcase your work and discuss its technical merits. Each PhD is a highly personalised and highly personal experience. Our vast array of potential supervisors, industrial partners and topics offer plenty of choice. 

3. Cohort development activities

Belonging to a doctoral training programme means that your study experience moves beyond a simple combination of courses, research and placements. SPADS offers a host of additional “cohort development activities” that seek to develop your skills, network and awareness of engineering in a more “natural” environment as you will experience throughout your future career.

These include:

• A summer school: A training and networking event with lectures on state-of-art topics taught by academics and industry partners.
• Specialised theme meetings: Mini workshops where narrower topics can be discussed in more depth with industrial partners; includes grand challenge sessions where industry shares their open problems.
• An annual postgraduate showcase event: A tecnology fest with opportunities to present to attendants from industry and academia and pitch your projects and ideas.
• Presentation and public engagements skills workshops: Bespoke training for effective communication with specialists and non-specialists in science and engineering.
• An innovation and commercialisation sandpit: An opportunity to gauge the commercial viability of your ideas and learn how to build business cases, run start-up activities and raise seed funding.
• Student-led seminar series: an opportunity for students to design their own programme, inviting speakers and delivering their own talks. 
• Annual site visits to partner institutions: Opportunities to connect with industrial partners and build an understanding of their world views.
• A cohort-building event at the Firbush outdoors centre: A fun activity to destress!
• A host of smaller team-building activities: Keep up with special SPADS events as they become available