EngD in Systems

The EngD is a doctorate, equivalent to a PhD in academic contribution, but with the Research Engineer pursuing a research project while based within a company, working on Industry needs led research project;
Research Engineers enjoy an enhanced stipend (tax free most cases) that is typically £5,000 pa more than for a PhD. The research itself is identified by the sponsoring company and confirmed as appropriate by the University.
Within the company, an RE is treated *for all intents and purposes* as an employee, eg with company hours of work and holiday periods. The company commits to supporting the research project over the duration of the 4-year EngD programme, and to releasing REs to attend taught modules. All time spent on the EngD programme is fully recognised by Institutions towards CEng status.
Eligibility for full stipends and fees follow rules laid down by EPSRC. Please see more information about EngD on the Association of EngDs website.

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In organisations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together.

Systems Thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, by viewing “problems” as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. Systems thinking focuses on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect.

Cyber Defence

There are many definitions for ‘Cyber’ that focus on information and communication. Computers and communication technologies have transformed how people, organisations and nations do business and depend upon the digital infrastructure. Unlike other global commons, the cyber domain has a duality that can cause confusion as the physical cyber infrastructure of communication networks supports the transmission of information. The physical cyber domain relies on the electromagnetic spectrum and digital infrastructure, while the information cyber domain relies on the transmission, storage and processing of data into useable information.
Nations and organisations require concepts and capabilities for anticipating, deterring, preventing, protecting against and responding to a disruption or a denial of access to the global commons (air, maritime, space and cyber) and for ensuring freedom of action within them, while taking into account their interrelationships.

Visualisation

Visual analytics is “the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by visual interactive interfaces.”
It can attack certain problems whose size, complexity, and need for closely coupled human and machine analysis may make them otherwise intractable. Visual analytics advances science and technology developments in analytical reasoning, interaction, data transformations and representations for computation and visualisation, , analytic reporting, and technology transition.As a research agenda, visual analytics brings together several scientific and technical communities from computer science, information visualisation, , cognitive and perceptual sciences, interactive design, graphic design, and social sciences.
Visual analytics integrates new computational and theory-based tools with innovative interactive techniques and visual representations to enable human-information discourse. The design of the tools and techniques is based on cognitive, design, and perceptual principles. This science of analytical reasoning provides the reasoning framework upon which one can build both strategic and tactical visual analytics technologies for threat analysis, prevention, and response. Analytical reasoning is central to the analyst’s task of applying human judgments to reach conclusions from a combination of evidence and assumptions.

Decision Making

Decision making can be regarded as the mental processes (cognitive process) resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice. The factors that effect individual decision making have been studied as have the decisions based upon technology visualisation, but what about the system or environment in which the decision taken are independent of the individual and a product of the system?