As a PhD student, there are a few administrative tasks that you are required to carry out.  This page is intended to be your source of information  on a 24/7 basis and provide you with the forms that you require from time to time.

Students should refer to the Handbook of the department that they are primarily registered in. This would be the Physics department for anyone in Cohorts 1- 5, or the Physics department or Materials department for anyone in Cohorts 6-10 (Students  are registered in Materials or Physics depending on the department of their principal supervisor: those with principal supervisors in the Faculty of Natural Sciences are registered in Physics, and those with principal supervisors in the Faculty of Engineering are registered in Materials.). 

PhD Progress Review

Progress reviews are carried out during each year of your PhD. They should be carried out by your supervisor/s and an independent assessor, normally an academic who is not directly involved in your project. As well as submitting the forms for each review to your department a copy of all PhD review forms should always be returned to the CDT office including a research plan. For purposes of the review, the TSM-CDT is your research group.

Students registered in Physics

Please follow all of the procedures, guidelines and timelines set out by the department of Physics. Further information is set out by year in the PhD schedule on the Physics department website.

Students registered in Materials

Please follow all of the procedures, guidelines and timelines set out by the department of Materials. Further information is available in your handbook or via the Materials Postgraduate module on Blackboard.

Paper Acknowledgements

In all publications arising from research carried out in the TSM CDT, students should acknowledge the relevant funding source in the Acknowledgements section of the publication. This is an important part of keeping track of outputs from the Centre. For example, for students in cohorts 1 to 5, please include:

“This work was supported through a studentship in the Centre for Doctoral Training on Theory and Simulation of Materials at Imperial College London funded by the EPSRC (EP/G036888/1)”;

and for students in cohorts 6-10:

“This work was supported through a studentship in the Centre for Doctoral Training on Theory and Simulation of Materials at Imperial College London funded by the EPSRC (EP/L015579/1)”.

Students may also wish to acknowledge the research environment provided by the Thomas Young Centre by adding the following sentence to the Acknowledgements section of their paper:

“We acknowledge the Thomas Young Centre under grant number TYC-101."

Travel to Conferences

The conference budget for cohorts 6-10 is £1250 per year for three years of PhD. Unspent funds will automatically roll over to the following year. All expenditure must be approved by your supervisor by way of signing the forms or sending email to the CDT office.

Travel: 
The preferred method of booking travel is for you to ask us to book flights, rail tickets or Eurostar on your behalf. You can only pay for your travel and make an expense claim if you have prior approval from the CDT office. We are able to book flights and, puchase rail tickets for travel within the UK or by Eurostar. 

You are advised to always travel by standard air or rail class. Travel by premium classes is not refundable.

Taxi rides will only be refunded on reasonable grounds. For example, if you choose to take a taxi to Heathrow rather than the underground, you will not be refunded.

It is important that you give us reasonable notice prior to your travel. We are able to obtain rail or air travel within 48 hours of asking. In each case, please inform us of your preferred time of travel and in addition for rail travel, inform us if you are a rail card holder.

Conference Fees:
In most instances we can make direct payments on your behalf rather than you paying and submitting a claim. To do so, you are required to provide details of the payment to the CDT office at least one week before the conference but preferably as soon as possible.

Accommodation & Subsistence:
The preferred method of booking accommodation is for you to ask us to book a hotel for you via the College booking system. However, if the conference offers a prefered rate that we cannot match or alternative accommodation is proven to be cheaper it may be possible for you to book it yourself and submit a claim. This can only be done with prior approval from the admin office. If required you may obtain money in advance to cover subsistence by completing an advance claim form and forwarding to the CDT office at least 4 weeks before you travel. Advance claim forms may be sent by email for faster processing.

Insurance:
The College travel insurance covers you when you are on College business if you register your trip before you depart. It is therefore not necessary to purchase a travel insurance cover while on College business.  In addition, the policy may allow some cover for private holiday when taken incidental to the business travel. The exact number of days allowed for personal travel depends on the length of stay. The details of the cover can be found on the Insurance page. Expenses claims for travel insurance will not be honoured.

Students based in other institutions

The CDT covers your travel to Imperial, if you are required to be here.

We will accept scanned documents for the progress review reports.

We can purchase rail tickets in advance for students who make frequent travel to an external institution.

Finance forms and how to complete them

Please always remember to keep your receipts to make an expense claim or to account for an advance claim. We are able to refund up to £10 without a receipt in certain circumstances.

Expense claim form (Excel): For claiming reimbursement from College following expenditure incurred on College business. Complete all the sections of the form: your name, CID, bank details, details of the travel or car mileage if applicable, Entertainment/Hospitality if you have bought lunch for the cohort or visitors, Subsistence if you have spend money on accommodation or food while travelling, Incidentals if you have paid conference fees. The form may be sent electronically with copies of all receipts. In that case, you will need to write your name in place of signature at the bottom of the left hand side alongside an email from your supervisor authorising the expenditure.

Advance claim form (PDF)‌: For claiming advances prior to travel for conferences, meetings and field trips. Complete the highlighted sections and send the form electronically to Miranda with an email from your supervisor authorising the travel. After the trip, related expenses should be submitted - via an Expense Claim Form.