Course summary

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2024). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas. As a student on one of Oxford's research degree programmes in materials, you will be part of one of the top-ranked materials departments in the world (QS World University Rankings 2024). In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment of research excellence in UK universities, research from the University's Department of Materials and Department of Engineering Science was jointly submitted to REF Unit of Assessment (UOA) 12 - Engineering (there is not a specific REF UOA for Materials). The results for this submission show that: 71% of the research activity of the two departments was judged to be in the highest category of excellence, Grade 4* ('World- leading'); a further 26% of the research activity of the two departments was judged as Grade 3* ('Internationally Excellent'); and 90% of research impact was judged to be ‘World-leading’. The department's high rating for research is evidence of its excellence in a wide range of materials research. At the time of writing the department's vibrant materials research community consists of 31 academic staff, 10 Senior Fellows / Senior Research Staff, over 200 DPhil students, and 80 postdoctoral researchers. Research students are of many nationalities and come to the department from diverse scientific backgrounds; primarily materials science, physics, chemistry and engineering, but including too subjects such as mathematics, earth sciences and biology. Leading-edge research is carried out across a wide range of materials science, ranging from atomic-scale characterization, through state-of-the-art materials modelling, to pilot industrial-scale processing. Research students in the Department of Materials are also members of the University's MPLS Graduate School, which provides a wide range of support and training in addition to that offered by the department.