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Strategic Research Areas (SRAs)
At DiveIn, we focus on tackling the world’s most pressing challenges while driving innovation through transformative technologies. Our research areas are inherently interdisciplinary, bringing together expertise from across the University of Glasgow to address issues of national and global importance. They are designed to create real-world impact – shaping policy, informing industry, improving health and protecting the planet – while advancing the tools and technologies that make breakthroughs possible.
Our strategic areas combine two interconnected strands: Global Challenges and Enabling Technologies. Together, they link the purpose behind our research with the methods, systems and platforms that make meaningful solutions possible. Every project sits at this interface, where purpose and innovation reinforce one another.
We welcome students from all backgrounds – recent graduates, returners, industry professionals and career changers – who are excited to explore new ideas, develop new skills and contribute to research with real-world impact.
Global Challenges
Our Global Challenges reflect the urgent, complex and interconnected issues facing society today. They align with UKRI’s missions and national priorities, ensuring that DiveIn contributes directly to the UK’s scientific, industrial and societal goals.
We focus on four priority areas:
- Beyond Net Zero – building climate-resilient and sustainable systems that reduce emissions while improving lives.
- Bridging the Digital Divide – ensuring equitable digital access, participation and benefit in a data-driven world.
- Planetary Health – protecting the intertwined health of people, ecosystems and the planet.
- Transforming Health and Healthcare – improving prevention, diagnostics, therapeutics and health equity through innovation.
Solving these challenges demands boundary-crossing thinking and the ability to integrate insights from engineering, physical sciences, life sciences, computing, social science, environmental science and design. Students motivated by societal impact – including those returning to study or shifting fields – will find space to shape meaningful questions and pathways for change. Their work provides the purpose and direction that guide technological innovation across DiveIn, ensuring our Enabling Technologies are driven by real-world needs.
Beyond Net Zero
Beyond Net ZeroGlasgow’s Beyond Net Zero research recognises that science and technology research into reducing carbon emissions alone will not create a just and sustainable future.
Bridging the Digital Divide
Bridging the Digital DivideThe digital divide isn’t just about internet access, it’s about who gets to participate in a digital society and who gets left behind. At the University of Glasgow, researchers tackle this form multiple angles: building better connectivity technologies, designing systems that work for everyone, and understanding the social and economic barriers that keep people disconnected.
Planetary Health
Planetary HealthThe University of Glasgow recognises that planetary health research must go well beyond reducing greenhouse-gas emissions - it must address the intertwined systems of human health, ecosystem integrity and societal justice.
Transforming Health and Healthcare
Transforming Health and HealthcareTransforming Health and Healthcare is at the forefront of a transformative field at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and biomedical applications.
Enabling Technologies
Enabling Technologies are the scientific and engineering capabilities that make ambitious solutions possible. These include AI and Big Data, Advanced Connectivity, Advanced Materials, Quantum Technologies, Photonics and Engineering Biology.
At DiveIn, enabling technologies are fully integrated with the Global Challenges they support. They provide the methods, platforms, tools and architectures that allow us to tackle large-scale problems with creativity and precision.
Students work at the intersection of frontier technologies and real-world purpose:
- designing new analytical techniques.
- building computational, engineering and biological tools.
- developing and manufacturing novel materials, devices and systems.
- creating models, sensors and platforms that accelerate discovery.
- and applying them directly to climate resilience, digital inclusion, health and planetary wellbeing.
Advancing these technologies requires technical creativity, rigorous problem-solving and the imagination to push what is scientifically possible. Students who enjoy building things, measuring things, coding things and inventing tools – whether seasoned engineers, self-taught makers or returners exploring new directions – will find room to stretch their capabilities. Their innovations make it possible to address the Global Challenges at scale, ensuring DiveIn’s mission-driven research is powered by cutting-edge solutions.
Advanced Connectivity Technology
Advanced Connectivity TechnologyThe Advanced Connectivity area at the University of Glasgow is at the forefront of transformative telecommunication technologies. The approach is not just about advancing the technical landscape; it’s about reshaping global connectivity.
Advanced Materials
Advanced MaterialsThe University of Glasgow has a wide-ranging portfolio of research into advanced materials, ranging from biologicals, through soft organics and hybrid materials, all the way to hard inorganics.
AI & Big Data
AI & Big DataGlasgow's AI research is uniquely focused on developing approaches that are human-centred and user-oriented.
Engineering Biology
Engineering BiologyEngineering Biology brings together synthetic biology and engineering to create novel biological systems that do not exist in nature. At the University of Glasgow, it acts as a powerful enabling technology across major research missions.
Photonics
PhotonicsAt the University of Glasgow, researchers shape the future of light-based technologies in a rich and increasingly interdisciplinary portfolio. Our photonics researchers can be found in the Schools of Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, Computing Science and the James Watt School of Engineering.
Quantum Technologies
Quantum TechnologiesThe University of Glasgow is home to the Centre of Quantum Technologies and plays leading roles in both the UK Hub for Quantum Enabled Position, Navigation and Timing (QEPNT) and the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Sensing, Imaging and Timing (QuSIT).