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Biochemical Engineering MPhil/PhD

London, Bloomsbury

UK students International students

Study mode

UK tuition fees (2024/25)

£6,035

£3,015

Overseas tuition fees (2024/25)

£31,100

£15,550

Duration

3 calendar years

5 calendar years

Programme starts

September 2024

Applications accepted

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

Apply for this course

Entry requirements

A minimum of an upper second-class UK Bachelor’s degree, or a UK Master's degree, in life or physical sciences or engineering, or an overseas qualification of an equivalent standard. Relevant industrial experience can also be considered.

The English language level for this programme is: Level 1

UCL Pre-Master's and Pre-sessional English courses are for international students who are aiming to study for a postgraduate degree at UCL. The courses will develop your academic English and academic skills required to succeed at postgraduate level.

Further information can be found on our English language requirements page.

If you are intending to apply for a time-limited visa to complete your UCL studies (e.g., Student visa, Skilled worker visa, PBS dependant visa etc.) you may be required to obtain ATAS clearance. This will be confirmed to you if you obtain an offer of a place. Please note that ATAS processing times can take up to six months, so we recommend you consider these timelines when submitting your application to UCL.

Equivalent qualifications

Country-specific information, including details of when UCL representatives are visiting your part of the world, can be obtained from the International Students website.

International applicants can find out the equivalent qualification for their country by selecting from the list below. Please note that the equivalency will correspond to the broad UK degree classification stated on this page (e.g. upper second-class). Where a specific overall percentage is required in the UK qualification, the international equivalency will be higher than that stated below. Please contact Graduate Admissions should you require further advice.

About this degree

Our graduate programmes are internationally recognised and draw on advances in life sciences and the core discipline of biochemical engineering. We maintain close teaching and research links with experts throughout the UK and overseas, and are also involved in close collaborations with industry. This vibrant department leads in the field and offers an exciting graduate training and research environment. Independent assessments confirm the excellence and breadth of the Department's taught programmes (IChemE accredited) and place our research programmes at the forefront of international endeavours.

Researchers have access to a range of taught modules to support their research and fulfil any taught course requirements. These address advanced knowledge of the discipline as well as transferable skills. Many are taken together with industrial delegates as part of the department's MBI Training Programme.

Who this course is for

Read about what it takes to become a UCL graduate research student

What this course will give you

Our EPSRC and BBSRC funded PhD programme delivers a unique national capability for training the next generation of highly skilled future leaders and researchers for the UK biopharmaceutical and healthcare biotechnology sectors. They will be capable of translating new scientific advances both in manufacturing technologies and new classes of macromolecular products, into safely produced, more selective therapies for currently intractable conditions at affordable costs.

In our internationally renowned department you are able to make full use of over £30m of investment into comprehensive and unique facilities. All our leading-edge facilities are underpinned by state-of-the-art analytical equipment and experiences obtained from these world class facilities make students from the department much sought after. Facilities and labs include:

Fully equipped pilot plant;
Micro-engineering and lab-on-a-chip facility;
Cell therapy bioprocessing labs;
Responsive bioprocessing facility

The department offers a range of research degree opportunities; many supported by EPSRC awards, and by industrial sponsors. The projects draw upon the expertise within the department and the multidisciplinary research linkages of the department. Many of the PhD projects are collaborative with leading bioindustry companies and all address strategically significant issues, frequently on a truly global scale.

Find out how your research could have an impact

The foundation of your career

The department places great emphasis on its ability to assist its research degree graduates in taking up exciting careers in the sector. The research centres in UCL Biochemical Engineering are partnered with over 80 UK and global companies in total, and provide an extensive access to all major companies in the sector. The department's UCL-accredited MBI courses also give you the opportunity to engage and network with industrialists.

Employability

Recent graduates have taken up academic posts at UCL, and various international institutions. Others have found professional employment within organisations such as Merck, GSK and Pall.

Recent career destinations for this degree include:

Bioprocess Development Engineer, Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine
Managing Director, Medisieve
Project Manager, Lonza
Process Development Scientist, Cell Therapy Catapult
Viral Vector Downstream Processing, Boehringer Ingelheim

Networking

All PhD and EngD students will be participants in research centres established at UCL Biochemical Engineering. All students participate in the Modular Training for the Bioprocess Industries Programme (MBI) which is also attended by company delegates, and also by industrial guest speakers. These events provide exposure to key industry contacts. Research students are also expected to attend at least one major international conference with the aim of promoting their work.

Teaching and learning

PhD students at UCL do not take any credit-bearing modules. Instead, you will have to complete training courses for which you receive “Roberts points”. The Roberts points system provides opportunities for you to do generic and transferable skills training as part of your programme. The training courses or workshops are provided by UCL or its affiliated member institutions. The training is free of charge and there is a wide variety of useful courses available. See more information on the Doctoral Skills Development programme’s website. You receive Roberts point for all core and optional modules as well.

PhD students in our department have several “core” training courses/modules to complete and have relative freedom to decide what to choose as optional ones, as long as it is in agreement with the supervisor. We would expect this to be a discussion between you and your supervisor as part of the first few supervisory meetings where a training plan should be agreed and recorded on the Research log. You have to complete 20 points worth of skills courses to be eligible to attempt upgrade from MPhil to PhD candidacy and 60/80 points to be eligible to submit your thesis/be awarded a PhD degree (20 points per year).

The core training skills courses for students on the Research Degree: Biochemical Engineering course are listed below. You must complete the assessment for all core modules and pass in order to satisfy the training requirements and receive Roberts points for them.

Year 1

Pilot Plant Unit Operations (BENG0057), - one week intensive module on campus, in the Pilot Plant
Design of Experiments for Bioprocess Optimisation (BENG0077) – 3.5 day intensive course
3. Research Skills (BENG0097) – Weekly classes, Terms 1 and 2

Year 2

Pilot Plant Project (BENG0056)

Optional modules can be chosen from the list of training courses on the Doctoral Skills website. With the approval of the Departmental Graduate Tutor you may enrol on any other postgraduate (Level 7) module listed in the UCL Module catalogue. The majority of our students enrol on several MBI courses that are short courses that we offer to people in industry and research students. Once you agree with your supervisor which modules you are doing in the next academic year please email the MBI Manager for availability and registration. You will normally receive Roberts points for attendance only on optional modules but some module leads may ask you to submit an assessment as well.

Typically these are full-time research programmes that will draw upon the expertise in the department, equivalent to a full-time research position.

Research areas and structure

Research in UCL Biochemical Engineering ranges from fundamental studies through to their translation to commercial practice exploring research goals which include the following:

Environment and sustainability: exploiting green biological catalysts for biorefining and high-value pharmaceutical syntheses
Harnessing genomics: directed evolution, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology can deliver efficient cell systems for producing biopharmaceuticals and enzymes
Making the outcome affordable: business approaches coupled with engineering paradigms offer new healthcare opportunities
Processing of complex biological materials: epitomised by the use of proteins, viruses and cells for therapy, the challenge is to process materials of increasing complexity to make them available to all who need them
Speed from discovery to benefit: using small mimics, microfluidics and mathematical models provides process understanding for effective scale-translation enhancing the precision and rate of process development.

Research environment

Fully equipped pilot plant;
Micro-engineering and lab-on-a-chip facility;
Cell therapy bioprocessing labs;
Responsive bioprocessing facility

The length of registration for the research degree programmes is 3 years for full-time and 5 years for part-time.

In your first year, you are registered for the MPhil award in the first instance; the upgrade process is put in place to check your progress and ability to complete a PhD. As a full-time student your upgrade normally takes place in your first year. As a part-time student, whose programme of study is typically 5 years, your first upgrade attempt usually takes place in Year 2. You will be examined by an internal examiner other than your supervisors and your secondary supervisor at an upgrade viva. Additionally, you are expected to complete 3-4 compulsory, non-credit bearing modules run by the department during the first year (see below).

By the end of the second year of training you should have completed all compulsory, non-credit bearing elements including a fourth or fifth one which are also run by the department. Emphasis at this stage is on the status of the scientific paper, which represents the essence of the original research work carried out by you. In addition, your supervisory team expect that you provide evidence that you have developed project management skills as demonstrator and also as leader of an undergraduate/MSc research project. Demonstratorship normally takes place in Year 2 and 3 of the training

In the beginning of third year of training, you are expected to give a comprehensive talk in the departmental seminar series in term one. It is preferable that all practical work should cease three months before the end of the final period of MPhil/PhD registration (e.g. end of June for September/October starters).

After you complete your third year of studying you may register as a Completing Research Status (CRS) student which lasts for up to one year (two years part-time) while you write up your thesis. The thesis must be submitted at latest by the end of the CRS period. Note: Students funded for 4 years are not normally eligible for CRS and are required to submit their thesis by their funding end date.

Year 1 compulsory modules:

BENG0077 - Design of Experiments
BENG0057 - Pilot Plant Unit Operations
BENG0097 - Research Skills

Year 2 compulsory module:

BENG0056 - Pilot Plant Project

The programme is full-time but students may request to move to part-time if on a case-by-case basis as agreed with their supervisor.

Accessibility

Details of the accessibility of UCL buildings can be obtained from AccessAble accessable.co.uk. Further information can also be obtained from the UCL Student Support and Wellbeing team.

Fees and funding

Fees for this course

UK students International students

Fee description	Full-time	Part-time
Tuition fees (2024/25)	£6,035	£3,015
Tuition fees (2024/25)	£31,100	£15,550

The tuition fees shown are for the year indicated above. Fees for subsequent years may increase or otherwise vary. Where the programme is offered on a flexible/modular basis, fees are charged pro-rata to the appropriate full-time Master's fee taken in an academic session. Further information on fee status, fee increases and the fee schedule can be viewed on the UCL Students website: ucl.ac.uk/students/fees.

Additional costs

The programme may be subject to an Additional Fee Element (AFE). The AFE (also known as a bench fees) is levied to cover the additional costs related to consumables, equipment, materials, attending conferences etc. As each PhD project is unique in nature, the AFE is calculated on a student by student basis and is determined by the academic supervisor. The AFE is banded into four fixed amounts: £1,000, £2,500, £5,000, £10,000 with one further band for variable sums over £10,000.

For more information on additional costs for prospective students please go to our estimated cost of essential expenditure at Accommodation and living costs.

Funding your studies

The Department receives a range of UKRI funding that students may be considered for, this includes the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Bioprocess Engineering. Please see the page for the EngD in Bioprocess Engineering Leadership course for more details. For a comprehensive list of the funding opportunities available at UCL, including funding relevant to your nationality, please visit the Scholarships and Funding website.

For a comprehensive list of the funding opportunities available at UCL, including funding relevant to your nationality, please visit the Scholarships and Funding website.

See all the ways you can fund your studies

: CSC-UCL Joint Research Scholarship

Value: Fees, maintenance and travel (Duration of programme)

Criteria Based on academic merit

Eligibility: EU, Overseas

Next steps

Applications are considered throughout the year. Deadlines and start dates are usually dictated by funding arrangements so check with the department or academic unit to see if you need to consider these in your application preparation. In most cases you should identify and contact potential supervisors before making your application. For more information see our How to apply page.

Please note that you may submit applications for a maximum of two graduate programmes (or one application for the Law LLM) in any application cycle.

This programme requires two references. Further information regarding references can be found on this Selecting your references page.

Choose your programme

Please read the Application Guidance before proceeding with your application.