Over 30 Joint Doctoral Degrees have been developed through the strategic partnership to date, across diverse subject areas, including medicine, science, engineering and law.
Candidates spend 50% of their time in both Swansea and Grenoble and are jointly supervised by academic staff from both universities. Successful candidates receive a double degree from the Université Grenoble Alpes and Swansea University.
Student numbers have been growing steadily since the partnership started in 2013.
The first graduating joint Grenoble-Swansea PhD student, Caroline Bissardon, whose research was into the ‘Role of selenium in Articular cartilage Metabolism, Growth and Maturation’ was awarded the prestigious L'Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science award, which recognises the achievements of exceptional female scientists across the globe and awards them with Fellowships to help further their research.
Caroline was the first candidate to complete her doctoral degree on the prestigious Grenoble –Swansea Joint PhD programme and reports that the joint PhD was a wonderful living and learning opportunity.
Working jointly in Swansea’s Centre of Nanohealth and UGA’s TIMC laboratory and Grenoble’s world-leading Synchrotron facility, the research covered a diverse multidisciplinary area, interfacing geology; biology; and biophysics, analysing the importance of selenium in cartilage health. These research results will have wide-ranging world health benefits, as a causative link of selenium poor diets increasing the risk of developing chronic diseases.
