"The CDE programme is an exciting research opportunity for innovation partnerships between academia and industry. CDE is extremely flexible to accommodate the industry’s diverse research phases, to take in students at any time throughout the academic year."
Maria Stukoff, Academic Partnership Manager, SCEE

"This is an excellent programme which will benefit our industry significantly. Currently there is a big need for high calibre technical people and the proposed Centre will address this shortage effectively." Dave Walsh, MD, Frontier (Cambridge).

"We are very enthusiastic about the approach being taken by CDE and look forward to a very rewarding experience working with their research students and mentors to help us maintain a competitive edge in this very dynamic field.”
David Sproxton, Managing Director, Aardman (Bristol)

The CDE cannot function without the active participation of our industry partners. We have already made several alliances with key companies across the animation, games and visual effects sector and are working to make more.
If you are interested in learning more about the CDE’s work and how it can benefit your organisation please contact us at cde@cs.bath.ac.uk with your details and we will call you back.

Mission
The Centre for Digital Entertainment is part of Britain’s biggest ever investment of £250 million aimed at training the scientists and engineers Britain needs for its future. Over the next five years, some 2,000 PhD students will be recruited to 44 centres across the country to tackle some of the biggest challenges currently facing Britain.

The CDE will focus on providing research-level skills as well as technical and management expertise to people heading into the specialist industries of computer animation, games and visual effects.

Package
Over the course of the 4 year programme successful candidates will spend 75% of their time in your company working on projects of genuine significance to your business.

To support candidates in their research we are offering them access to options form the range of Bath and Bournemouth’s respected Master’s programmes. This taught program will be tailored to the individual needs of candidate and company and agreed in negotiation with all partners.

From the CDE the candidate receives their fees for the doctoral program, a yearly stipend of £14,790 tax free, a high spec laptop and funding for national and international conference visits.

We would expect you to provide an industrial supervisor to support the candidate in their work and be sensitive to the needs of their study program, allowing them time to participate in teaching or external activities like conferences.

As the host of a doctoral candidate you will be invited to participate in our Industrial Advisory Board where we welcome your feedback on the program and advice on the future direction of the CDE.

Benefits to you
The small cost of the scheme can usually be more than offset by tax credits or as a lump sum paid to you. All companies spending over £10,000 per annum on R&D (as defined for tax purposes) are entitled to a deduction when calculating their taxable profits of.

• 150% of qualifying expenditure for small and medium-sized companies, and
• 125% of qualifying expenditure for larger companies.

Notice that you can offset a lot more than you actually spend. We strongly advise you consult your accountant because we find many client companies use this to their advantage.

The small charges made by the Centre can be offset but so too can larger expenses. For example, if one of your employees registers as a research student with us while still being fully employed by you, their salary can be offset for four years. The financial benefit to you will comfortably exceed the hours they are required to invest in the student activity. This is an excellent way of retaining a valued employee during the programme while freeing up salary cost. Students do not come under employment legislation or cost you employee-overheads unless, as above, you choose to employ them: we never require you to, you can employ them part way through the programme to maximise the chance they stay with you, setting their salary against tax while they complete the degree.

DTI information on how the tax relief works

HM Revenue and Customs information

Other benefits are as follows
The research projects are ones that the company defines and wants investigating. Typically this scheme allows that to be done without taking front-line staff away from their main missions.

Companies evaluate each applicant: there is never any obligation to take anyone.

The student spends at least three years in the company undertaking research and at most one year at university taking taught courses.

The Centre provides regular academic and management input, maintains progress records and shields the company from university procedures.

We coordinate special events where all the researchers come together to learn from each others’ experiences. Company representatives may also attend. In this way we provide you with access to all researchers in the scheme, giving you access to a large group of high-skills people.

Contact cde@cs.bath.ac.uk