Why Study with CCSD

Doing a PhD with the CCSD gives you:

• Enhanced job prospects and opportunities through working with industry and several world renown research organisations
• The enjoyment and challenge of interacting with Australia's best coal scientists and energy sustainability experts.
• Excellent support for your project and for travel to other laboratories and conferences and
• An opportunity to extend scientific knowledge within a sustainability context.

In choosing to undertake a PhD, you should consider the ability of the institution to provide the required facilities and training. CCSD operates from four highly regarded Australian Universities: The University of Newcastle, The University of New South Wales, The University of Queensland, Macquarie University and Curtin University of Technology, and through CSIRO, the Australian National Research Organisation. Each site has well funded and equipped laboratories. The cooperation between centre sites also increases the equipment available to students studying with CCSD. The centre's education and training program has many aims: from developing community awareness of the value of coal to society, to enhancing the value of research completed in the centre. The research training aspect of the program is outlined below:

Training

Once students join CCSD we ensure their technical understanding of coal research (that is not just their highly defined research area) continually increases and their professional skills required to complete that research are improved. Research projects are either experimental or modelling based projects, though each type of project does require a portion of the other to be completed. Each project requires modelling of the suggested hypothesis, analysis of the experimental results and communication of the results, both verbally and written. CCSD also provides short courses on both technical and personal development areas, such as communication or project management for postgraduate students. These training courses assist the student with their current work and future employment prospects by improving their ability to complete a project successfully. In many cases, Ph.D. students lack a strong understanding of the wide technical field they work in, concentrating solely on the fine points directly applicable to their projects. Many of the courses provided by the centre develop the broader range of knowledge of the students across the field of coal utilisation and sustainable coal use.

Industry Support

Each project supported by the centre has an industrial basis, that is they have value to industry and are selected directly by industry. Association with such industry based projects provide students with opportunities to develop strong contacts and to develop an understanding of industry values and requirements.

External supervisors

External supervisors are assigned to students to assist and provide an alternate viewpoint to the views the students experience within the working groups. The external supervisor generally belongs to a participating industrial company or are people with strong research experience, such as staff of CSIRO. The external supervisor is never an academic from a University, as this would destroy the opportunities that is hoped to be provided: that is, developing a network outside the University and obtaining a different industrial point of view on the research work. It also encourages industry participants to be involved in research projects. The close contact with groups outside the node often provides the student with access to people with different backgrounds, which assists in solving technical problems. External supervision is also a way to ensure research completed is always of the highest quality.

Interaction with other institutions

The Centre increases collaboration between research groups working on sustainable issues of coal utilisation. The Centre ensures students have contact with world-renowned researchers by inviting overseas researchers who are known to lead the world in their research area. These academics are given the title "eminent visitors" by CCSD and they review work completed in the centre, providing feedback to researchers from postgraduates to professors and the director of the centre. It encourages discussion and consultation and an open approach and helps student's start to develop a network amongst the research community in their field. It also helps to identify further opportunities within the field, both on a technical level (projects) and on a personal level (future job opportunities). Like most students, CCSD students also have opportunities to present their work at international conferences. Some students also have the opportunity to work with groups outside the Centre. Similarly, CCSD has secondees from international laboratories, such as CRIEPI and IHI, who work at the centre. The Centre also offers scholarships to its students to complete work at institutions outside CCSD.

Further Information:

The Education and Training Leader for the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development is: Professor Peter Nelson, pnelson@gse.mq.edu.au Please contact Professor Nelson if you have any enquiries.