EPSRC DLA Interdisciplinary Scholarship: Digital Twins in Critical Care Medicine

Qualification: Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering (PhD)

Start date: 6th October 2025

Funding for: 3.5 years

Supervisor: Professor Declan Bates and Dr Keith Couper

Project Description:

Digital twins are virtual representations of complex systems that mirror the real-world system over time, help analyse its behaviour, and provide predictive insights using advanced modelling, simulation and AI methodologies. Digital twins of patients will offer the potential to transform healthcare by generating mechanistic insight that can improve both patient care and the design of clinical trials. In critical care medicine, digital twins represent a highly novel and important development given the complex patient physiology and challenges of delivering clinical trials (costly, time-consuming, success rates typically < 40%).

Via this PhD Studentship, we will establish a new collaborative research programme between the Bates group in Engineering, which has pioneered the development of digital twins in critical care [1], and the Emergency, Prehospital, Perioperative and Critical Care Research Group in Warwick Medical School (Couper) who have co-ordinated some of the largest UK critical care clinical trials [2].

In this PhD, the student will develop new methods for the development of digital twins in Critical Care, and apply them to investigate some of the most urgent open clinical questions related to the treatment of patients with acute respiratory failure. They will benefit from expertise in advanced modelling and simulation (Bates-Engineering) and access to clinical expertise/trial datasets, such as RECOVERY-RS (ISRCTN16912075), BREATHE (ISRCTN15635197), REST (ISRCTN 31262122), AWAKE-PRONE (ISRCTN63784375), (Couper-Warwick Clinical Trials Unit).

About the supervisors: The Bates group has pioneered the use of digital twins in critical care, publishing in 2024 the first paper on this subject in the official journal of the US Critical Care Medicine Society [1]. In recent years the group’s work has been featured in the Annual Update of the International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine [3], in a keynote address by the President of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine [4], and twice in editorials in the British Journal of Anaesthesia [5,6]. Prof. Bates has received sustained funding for his work from EPSRC, MRC and industry (Bayer Healthcare, Fisher & Paykel) and has authored > 200 publications. He has supervised 15 PhD students (all to successful completion) and 21 PDRA’s, two of whom are Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellows.

Dr Keith Couper is a clinical academic based in the Warwick Clinical Trials Unit. His research focuses on the care of the critically ill, with a specific focus on clinical trials in the areas of cardiac arrest and respiratory failure [2,7]. He has generated over £12 million in research funding since 2020, predominantly from the National Institute of Health and Care Research. He supervises five PhD students and is the PGR Academic Lead for the Warwick Clinical Trials Unit.

Scholarship:

This award is a 3.5-year full-time scholarship to start in October 2025, including a UKRI rate stipend currently £20,780 per annum, full payment of academic fees at the home rate and a one-off £5,000 RTSG.

Eligibility:

This funding is restricted to home fees candidates due to Council requirements. The candidate should have a good 2.1 Bachelors, or Masters degree in a relevant field of Engineering, Physical Sciences or equivalent. Applications will also be considered from candidates with a relevant life-sciences background (physiology, medicine, systems biology, etc). This project will suit those interested in computational modelling of living systems, artificial intelligence techniques in healthcare, physiology, and systems engineering.

How to apply:

Applicants should prepare a cover letter outlining motivation and suitability for this project, and a full CV that includes your BSc or MSc with GPA, a list of all publications and contact details of two referees to warwick.ac.uk/engpgr/dgb/appcvLink opens in a new window.

---

The University of Warwick provides an inclusive working and learning environment, recognising and respecting every individual’s differences. We welcome applications from individuals who identify with any of the protected characteristics defined by the Equality Act 2010.