EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Sound Futures

• 1st Cohort Autumn 2025.
• PhD applications now open, deadline 15th January 2025.
• We’re running a webinar to help applicants 6th December 2024 1pm (UK time). Sign up here.

Our Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) will train 70 PhD students who have the skills and knowledge to reduce the harms caused by noise and poor acoustics and forge a more positive sounding future. We have created an unprecedented collaboration for doctoral training in Acoustics across four universities and over 50 project partners.

Why Sustainable Sound Futures?

From megacities to oceans, most places on Earth are polluted with noise and tranquility is disappearing. Noise is a health problem for one in five European citizens. At high levels it causes hearing loss. At moderate levels it creates chronic stress, annoyance, sleep disturbance and heart disease. Noise makes it harder to communicate, harms learning in schools and causes older people to withdraw from social situations. The 2023, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report called noise a “neglected pollutant” and recommended more research was needed. Noise also harms animals and decreases biodiversity.

But a sustainable aural future is more than just reducing noise. We will also investigate the engineering of positive sounds. From using sound to improve the accessibility of products, through to enhancing cultural events that boost well-being, there are many ways of creating a better sounding future. 

The CDT has four research themes: 

• New sound sources. The shift from fossil fuels to renewables, electricity and hydrogen will profoundly change how the world sounds. The new energy sources create challenges for industry and regulators, but also opportunities for us to innovate and improve the aural environment.  
• Perception of sound by human and other animals. If we are to create a better sounding future, how humans and other animals respond to sound must be at the heart of our engineering. We need to understand the interdependencies between physics and perception, exploiting new physiological measurement methods and virtual reality. 
• Machine Learning for sound. This is the dominant approach in signal processing and is now emerging as the next disruptive technology across computer simulation, measurement, design optimisation and modelling of listener response.
• Positive uses of sound. As well as quietening noise, we need to think how to improve the quality of sound from products and within places. There are also other positive uses of sound we might investigate, e.g. the rapid growth of acoustic sensors (e.g., IoT, underground telecommunications) unlocks potential for sound sensing to monitor buildings.

Training

From the beginning, our students will be registered at one of the four universities for their doctoral research. Progression and examination for their PhD will be overseen by their home university. Students will apply to study on particular PhD projects around our four research themes, which will be driven by the needs of our project partners.

To tackle a sustainable sound future, we need PhD students who have expertise created from their own specific research project, alongside a broad understanding of how sound fits into industry, society and the public sector. This is so they can help create a better sounding future in their career beyond the PhD.

This is why we provide extensive training that goes far beyond what is normally available for standard PhDs in Acoustics. A mixture of week-long residentials, master classes, theme days and online training will develop technical skills for work in sound and vibration (simulation, measurement, machine learning, psychoacoustics, etc.) and key skills for research (project planning, entrepreneurship, public engagement, policy influencing, responsible innovation, etc.). Placements in industry and academic partners will play an important role in ensuring students learn about context and how to create impact. The learning outcomes of the training have been co-created between academics and partners, to ensure the graduates have the skills, knowledge and understanding to build a career creating a more sustainable sound future for all. Employment prospects for our doctoral graduates will be extremely good, as there is a chronic shortage of PhD graduates in this area.

We will train 70 students over five cohorts. Students are fully funded for four years (tuition fees, stipend and bench fees). Some of our students will be part-time employees already in the acoustics industry.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

We will provide an inclusive, inspiring and supportive environment. From the beginning, we have been creating a CDT where inclusivity has been deliberately designed and embedded into all that we do, where every student, supervisor and partner feels that they matter and belong. We will treat people fairly and in accordance with their needs, celebrate difference, and work towards equity in outcomes for all. We will be pro-active to ensure that doctoral candidates, regardless of background, enjoy similar experiences and outcomes. We will work to remove barriers that stand in the way of achievement and equity.

The Network

This is a collaboration between the universities of Salford, Sheffield, Bristol and Southampton, working alongside over fifty project partners from industry to government. This creates a scale and depth of expertise and facilities that is unprecedented for Acoustics PhD training. The CDT is funded by the EPSRC with support from our project partners and the four universities.