PhD Study at ICCS
We encourage potential PhD students to first study for a master's degree, as this permits a year of in-depth exposure to the research at ICCS before embarking on a particular project. Potential students may be admitted directly to the PhD program if they have carried out prior postgraduate study, or in exceptional circumstances. For information regarding the structure of our PhD programme and entry requirements, please consult our School of Informatics PhD pages.
Possible Research Topics
ICCS is an interdisciplinary institute with expertise in a wide range of topics covering cognitive science, computational linguistics, machine learning of language, speech processing, data mining, and educational technology. We are always looking for bright, enthusiastic students with strong background in speech and language processing, maths, engineering, linguistics, informatics, computational linguistics, computer science or cognitive science.
The research page provides a list of potential supervisors within ICCS. For more information, consult the list of potential PhD topics. ICCS staff also participate in the Neuroinformatics Doctoral Training Centre.
Funding Information
Each year, ICCS admits about 12 PhD students, supported by a range of funding sources. The most important studentship schemes are:
- ESRC 1+3/+3 Quota/Competition Studentships: The 1+3 studentships fund one year of master's study followed by three years of PhD study, while the +3 studentships fund three years of PhD study. They cover fees and maintenance for UK students and fees only for EU students. Overseas students are not eligible. Candidates for these studentships are pre-selected by the School(ICCS) in April and then asked to complete a studentship application. If you would like to be considered, please specify on your application for admission that you are interested in an ESRC studentship. For more information see the ESRC studentship page, or Informatics Funding FAQ.
- EPSRC Quota Studentships: These studentships fund three years of PhD study. They cover fees and maintenance for UK students and fees only for EU students. Overseas students are not eligible. These studentships are allocated by the School, please specify on your application if you would like to be considered. For more information see the EPSRC studentship page , or Informatics Funding FAQ.
- Project Studentships: These studentships fund three years of PhD study, and are tied to externally funded projects. This includes EPSRC and ESRC project studentships and Marie Curie studentships funded by the European Commission. Eligibility and coverage varies with the funding source. Please check for project studentships available at ICCS.
- Overseas Research Student Awards: These studentships fund three years of PhD study. They cover the difference between home fees and overseas fees. Overseas students should consider to apply. To apply, submit an ORS application and a separate application for PhD admission at the same time or earlier, and provide references that will be used for both PhD admission and ORS selection. For more information see the ORS page.
- SICSA prize studentships: The Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) runs an annual competition for these studentships, which cover fees and stipend at UK/EU level for 3.5 years. Not only UK/EU students, but also overseas students are eligible. We pre-select several candidates from those who have applied for admission and ask these students to submit applications to SICSA. To be considered for these studentships, students need to submit their applications for admission by the end of January at the latest. For more information see the Informatics Funding FAQ and SICSA prize studentships.
There are several other funding opportunities not listed on this page. Please consult the following links:
Application Deadlines
Due to different funding mechanisms, applications from overseas students have to be received earlier. The application deadlines for entry in September are:
- late January for applications which involve a SICSA prize studentship or a ORS award (SORSA)
- early March for applications which involve ESRC quota/competition studentships
- mid-March for all other applications
Applications received after these deadlines may be considered, but this cannot be guaranteed.
Applications/Enquiries
Informal enquiries about studying for a PhD within ICCS may be made to the ICCS PhD Selector, Hiroshi Shimodaira.
Application forms and details on how to apply are available from the Informatics PhD Application page.