Imperial College London is a research-intensive university, and most of its academic and teaching staff belong to one of the four faculties: Engineering, Natural Sciences, Medicine and the Business School.

However, there are also academic and teaching staff based in one of the College’s education centres and Schools, such as the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship (CHERS) or the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication (CLCC).

Within each Faculty, there are a number of academic departments. When you join Imperial as a student you will be allocated to an academic department which will usually be the same academic department as your main supervisor.

• Some departments organise their academic staff into research groups, and/or multidisciplinary networks, centres & institutes. 
• Others also have Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) or Doctoral Training Partnerships/Programmes (DTPs). These are usually research collaboration projects with other universities, funded by Research Councils, which focus on research in a particular area through the provision of doctoral studentships.

When you join Imperial as a research student you may become part not only of a department, but also a research group and/or a CDT/DTP. You will join a team of researchers, post-docs and students who all work on a particular area of the department’s research themes/interests.

Visit your Faculty and Department’s websites to explore its content and find out:

• which department you belong to?
• are you also part of a research group or CDT/DTP? > Explore the researchers and other students who are already part of them.
• where will you be located? > Explore our campuses and how to get to them.
• where will be your desk located?
• who is your Head of Department?
• who is your Director of Postgraduate Studies?
• who is your Postgraduate Administrator/Manager?
• who is(are) your supervisor(s)?

Many departments’ websites also have internal pages for their new doctoral students with very detailed and relevant information – review them often as they will probably have the most updated information for you!

Most doctoral programmes are designed to be studied full-time, but some can be completed part-time.

If you decide to study on a part-time programme, you will be required to complete the same milestones, but they will be spread out.

If you are unsure whether your programme requires full-time or part-time study, have a look on the programme’s webpage and get in contact with your PGR administrator.