In 2006 The Universities of Bristol and Bath were awarded £3.4m to establish an EngD in Systems Centre. During the first 3 years of operation 31 projects were established with more than 20 different companies.

Due to its success the EPSRC awarded a further £5.3m to transform the EngD in Systems into the Industrial Doctorate Centre for Systems. To date there has been more than 115 students, across 9 cohorts, working on over 116 real world projects, with more than 60 industry partners and 50 systems academics.