Transformation North West

Transformation NW is a fully-funded doctoral training programme that applies design and creative techniques to maximise new product and service opportunities for business in the North West. Students co-create a programme of applied research in collaboration with large and small businesses. Transformation NW aims to enhance growth and prosperity in the region in support of the industrial strategy.

Building on the research expertise in design, digital technologies and the creative sector across four core NWCDTP partner institutions (Lancaster, Manchester Metropolitan, Liverpool and Salford Universities), innovative cooperation and collaboration across the whole consortium will help to deliver new product and service opportunities for businesses in the North West. Our approach draws upon the NWCDTP’s research excellence in design, technology and the creative sector, and the consortium’s experience in innovative in doctoral training.

Through interdisciplinary collaboration linking large and small-scale businesses together, students will undertake an applied PhD typically comprising three or four thematically linked projects with industry partners. Adopting a open and cross-industry approach, students will fuse science and technology with creative techniques, integrating place- and thematic-based responses to foster conditions for a sustainable, resilient and inclusive economy.

In response to the Industrial Strategy, research themes to which design and creative practice can be applied include:

  • Transformative digital technologies
  • Technologies for the Creative Industries
  • Manufacturing processes and materials of the future
  • Bioscience and biotechnology
  • Leading edge healthcare and medicine
  • Smart, flexible and clean energy technologies
  • Quantum technologies
  • Robotics and artificial intelligence
  • Satellites and space technologies

Transformation NW aims to further grow and scale up the creative sector in the North West whilst enhancing and contributing to the wider industry, recognising the value of combining science and technology with design and creativity, upon which much of the economy increasingly relies. Transformation NW is funded by the AHRC as part of the National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF). Students are registered at one of the seven NWCDTP.