The HetSys Student Experience
Life in the HetSys CDT
HetSys provides a supportive and exciting environment for our students to carry out their research. Our interdisciplinary student community is made up of several cohorts, all at different stages of their PhD projects.
Cohort-based doctoral training is very different to a standard PhD: All our students take part in cohort-wide training modules as part of a structured Post-Graduate Diploma which not only helps them acquire academic knowledge but builds a supportive environment with plenty of opportunities for collaboration, especially through the PX915 Group Project module.
Our students also benefit from participating in a wide-range of other training and development events throughout their studentships. These events are designed to provide technical knowledge and expertise, transferable skills and opportunities to build long lasting personal and professional relationships.
HetSys Students are part of a wide community of Doctoral Researchers at the University of Warwick. The Warwick Doctoral College supports students across the University by providing professional skills training, organising networking groups and community-building events and offering well-being support.
Beyond the Projects
We encourage our students to think about the wider impact of their research.
Our regular Industry Study Groups give our students the opportunity to work alongside Industry Scientists on problems of direct industrial relevance. These events are an internationally recognised method of knowledge transfer between academia and industry.
HetSys also provides training in areas such as Intellectual Property in relation to Software and Research Data Management.
Outreach and Public Engagement
In addition to getting their research published, or presenting at international conferences, we encourage our students to engage with the broader community through outreach activities.
Our student-led Outreach team works hard to share HetSys methodologies, research and expertise with the wider community to inspire the next generation of computational scientists. Initiatives so far include the Multiscale Musings podcast series and the Computational Toolkit online seminar series and resource bank.
Read more about HetSys Outreach work here
Networking and Presenting
We host events designed to give our students invaluable experience of presenting research to a mixed audience of peers, senior academics and non-academic collaborators. These include the annual HetSys Summer Conference and regular Research Theme Study Events. All HetSys students have a personal budget to support external conference attendance and participation as well.
Students are also given opportunities to build their own networks through the weekly HetSys-WCPM Seminar Series which features a broad range of international and domestic speakers from across the Predictive Modelling community and regular Industry Seminars hosted by the Centre.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Equality, diversity and inclusion concerns every member of our community. HetSys provide an inclusive working and learning environment, recognising and respecting all individuals' differences.
HetSys is proud to be a part of the Physics Department which holds an Athena SWAN Silver award, a national initiative to promote gender equality for all staff and students. The Physics Department is also a Juno Champion, which is an award from the Institute of Physics to recognise our efforts to address the under-representation of women in university physics and to encourage better practice for both women and men.
Warwick is a Stonewall Diversity Champion and has submitted to the UK Workplace Equality Index for a number of years. In the 2022 Stonewall Workplace Equality Index, Warwick was ranked 122 out of 403 and awarded Gold for achieving high standards in specific categories of the WEI, including those related to bi and trans inclusion.
Warwick was awarded the Race Equality Charter Bronze award in May 2022, in recognition of the Institution's commitment to working towards race equality and determination to tackle race inequality at all levels.
These are just a few examples of the work that is taking place at Warwick to create an inclusive and equal campus. Read more about other intiatives here.