Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

The Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing aims to be an exemplar of equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) across our activities. Our four University partners share this commitment and engage actively in ED&I charter marks (see below).


Recruitment & Admissions

We strongly encourage applications from under-represented groups, which in our discipline includes women and black and minority ethnic candidates. Those returning to study are welcome and we will consider your relevant work experience as well as previous academic results. We will advertise our studentships as widely as possible, using careers services as well as traditional PhD channels, and ensure that our materials showcase the diversity of wider PGR community and CDT cohort, both staff, students and industry partners.

Our current students will participate in engagement activities that will encourage young people from underrepresented groups to consider study in physics and engineering, building the pipeline into doctoral study. A number of our industrial partners’ employees participate in Science Ambassadors schemes to do the same and we will share good practice and align our activities where practical. We will actively contribute to initiatives focused on women in STEM.

Our selection process is based on academic and non-academic criteria – we are seeking to identify those students who can demonstrate the capability to undertake and benefit from research training, and to complete a doctorate. Our normal academic criterion is a first or upper second class honours degree, however students with a 2.2 will be considered if they have performed well at Masters level or have significant relevant work experience.

We also assess motivation for and commitment to PhD study in compound semiconductor manufacturing, and motivation for and commitment to the cohort-based approach to the PhD.

The Chair(s) of our interview panels are trained in chairing such panels and all members of the panel have received training in Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, including unconscious bias. Efforts will be made to ensure that there is diversity on the selection panel, without overburdening any individual.

We offer on-line interviews for candidates who find it difficult to travel to the interview site and we reimburse reasonable travel expenses for those who attend in person.

CDT Activities

As a multi-institutional CDT that encourages time in industrial settings, we support our students to travel between sites and to events.  For those with caring responsibilities, we provide funding for necessary additional costs incurred because of this required travel.

As with other EPSRC funded CDTs, we offer paid parental and adoption leave and will support students in returning to study after such breaks. 

Support is available for students with disabilities via all four partner Universities’ student services and by provision of a Disabled Student Allowance, where relevant.  MSc lectures are recorded as general practice at Cardiff University and we seek to record as many CDT seminars as possible to enable students to view them in case of absence or for revision purposes.   

We seek to develop an inclusive work and study environment, where diversity is valued.  Our training programme includes mandatory Equality & Diversity training for students, as well as avoiding unconscious bias.  We have peer mentoring programmes to further enhance the CDT environment and seeking to build links for student with protected characteristics in the broader research community. 

Equality Impact Assessment

We have conducted an equality impact assessment on our training programme, our PhD project selection process, and our recruitment and admissions processes (available on request from semiconductors-cdt@cardiff.ac.uk) and will seek to address issues that have emerged from these assessments.

External Recognition

All four University partners participate in external evaluation and recognition of their efforts to advance equality and diversity.  The University-level awards held by our partners are:

University-level awards held by our partners:

  • Athena Swan: Silver Award – Sheffield and UCL; Bronze Award – Manchester and Cardiff
  • Stonewall Top 100 Employers 2019: Cardiff, Manchester and Sheffield
  • Disability Confident: Manchester, Sheffield 
  • Race Equality Charter: Silver Award – Manchester; Bronze Award – UCL; Members – Cardiff, Sheffield

Faculty and Departmental Levels Awards:

  • Cardiff Physics – Juno Champion and Athena Swan Silver
  • Cardiff Engineering – Athena Swan Bronze
  • Manchester School of Engineering – Athena Swan Bronze
  • Manchester Physics – Juno Champion
  • Sheffield Electrical & Electronic Engineering – Athena Swan Bronze
  • Sheffield Physics – Juno Practitioner
  • UCL Electrical & Electronic Engineering – Athena Swan Bronze
  • UCL Physics – Athena Swan Silver and Juno Champion

Click here for more information on Project Juno, the Institute of Physics’ flagship gender equality award.

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