A snapshot of what we do

  • SEPnet’s Outreach and Public Engagement programme provides teachers with supported access to curriculum resources and integrated programmes with partners such as the Ogden TrustSTEMNET and the Institute of Physics.
  • SEPnet’s postgraduate training network – GRADnet – provides PhD and MSc by Research students across SEPnet with a wide range of discipline-focussed Advanced Physics Schools and other professional development opportunities.
  • All SEPnet’s activities benefit from a large, collaborative employer engagement network, with physics Employability Advisors based in each university, and with industry providing specialist training and placements for SEPnet students.
  • Research in SEPnet ranges from investigations into the most fundamental physics, encompassing matter from its smallest subatomic scales to the entire universe, and its interactions and dynamics.

Click to find out more about the GRADnet Programme and GRADnet AV sessions calendar.

And how we do it…

SEPnet is committed to equality and diversity in all aspects of its work. We support SEPnet partners to adopt and share best practice in gender equality, and by obtaining recognition for that work via the Institute of Physics’ Project Juno and applying for Athena SWAN award recognition.

Some of our key milestones

  • 2008 – we received a £12.5m grant from the Higher Education Funding Council for England to support innovative research, a collaborative Graduate School, lectures using video conferencing, regional employer engagement and a school outreach programme.
  • 2013 – we received a further £2.75m grant from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and £10.3m from our members to continue programmes from the first phase, maintain and expand the network, establish a dedicated regional graduate training programme for physics postgraduate students and address physics specific issues of student participation and diversity as well as working with the support of key partners including STFC and the Institute of Physics.
  • In 2018, SEPnet Phase III commenced, marking the beginning of a third 5-year term.
HEFCE's Professor David Sweeney launching SEPnet Phase 2 at Parliament, July 2013

HEFCE’s Professor David Sweeney launching SEPnet Phase 2 at Parliament, July 2013