Scholarships for PhD study in the School of Informatics

Around fifty research scholarships are available for:

• UK students
• EU students
• students worldwide

Many of these are full scholarships, paying your tuition fees and a stipend of £12940 to cover living expenses in your first year, rising in second and third years. The rest pay your fees and/or a contribution towards living expenses. Payment of fees for non-EU students is subject to successful competition for an Overseas Research Student award. PhD students are encouraged to make contributions to teaching, for example by leading tutorial groups, and for this you can expect to earn an additional £500-1000 per year.

Informatics

Informatics is the study of information and computation, in both natural and engineered systems. It comprises a vast range of scientific and engineering endeavour and has enormous economic and social impact.

Edinburgh University's School of Informatics brings together the former Departments of Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Computer Science, together with the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute. The School possesses a combination of breadth and strength unparallelled elsewhere in the UK and competitive world-wide; as an intellectual endeavour it is strikingly original.

The School is the only university grouping in the UK to have achieved the top 5*A rating in Computer Science in the UK government's 2001 Research Assessment Exercise round, and it is the UK's biggest research group in this area. We currently have around 270 students studying for PhD, and around 140 for MSc.

PhD study

PhD study is carried out within one of our six research Institutes:

• ANC: Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation
• CISA: Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications
• ICCS: Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems
• ICSA: Institute for Computing Systems Architecture
• IPAB: Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour
• LFCS: Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science

ANC fosters the study of adaptive processes in both artificial and biological systems; two themes are the study of artificial learning systems and the analysis and modelling of brain processes. CISA undertakes basic and applied research and development in knowledge representation and reasoning. Through its applications institute AIAI, it works with others to deploy the technologies associated with this research. ICCS pursues basic research into the nature of communication among humans and between humans and machines, using text, speech and graphics, and the design of interactive dialogue systems, using computational and algorithmic approaches.

ICSA seeks development of a better understanding of systems components, both hardware and software, and their integration and interaction; this involves not only improving their raw performance and cost-effectiveness, but also making them more connectable and interoperable, more reliable, more usable and more applicable. The interests of IPAB are how to link computational perception, representation, transformation and generation processes to external worlds---whether real or virtual. The mission of LFCS is to achieve a foundational understanding of problems and issues arising in computation and communication through the development of appropriate and applicable formal models and mathematical theories.

Projects

Below is a list of some current topics of research in the School of Informatics; follow the links for some information on each of them. This is not a complete list, and you are very welcome to propose a topic that is not on this list. Please consult our research directory and individual staff members' web pages to learn more about their research interests.

Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation

• Bioinformatics
• Machine Learning
• Neuroinformatics

Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications

• A Proof Management Tool
• Automating Diagrammatic Reasoning
• Improving Support for Mathematics in Mechanical Theorem Provers
• Multi-Agent Coordination in Open Environments
• Game-Theoretic Analysis of Multiagent Communication
• Argumentation-Based Ontology Conflict Resolution
• Political Coordination Mechanisms
• Intelligent Agents in Service-Oriented Architectures
• Collaborative Task-Achieving Teams

Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems

• Concurrency in (Computational) Linguistics
• Lexicalized Reasoning
• Building Models of the Past
• Unsupervised Language Learning using Multiple Cues
• Eyetracking Corpora as Experimental Data
• Probabilistic Models of Human Parsing
• Integrating Linguistic and Visual Processing
• Dynamic Bayesian Networks for Speech Recognition
• Probabilistic Approaches to Natural Language Generation
• Probabilistic Models of Text-to-Text Generation
• Robust Construction of Semantics
• Projecting Logical Forms in Parallel Corpora
• A Dynamic Semantic Theory of Dialogue
• A Grammar of Situated Language
• Statistical Methods in Dialogue System Design and Adaptation
• Statistical Machine Translation for Biomedical Domains
• Microphone-Array Based Speech Recognition
• Language Models for Multiparty Conversations
• Hidden Speech Production Models
• Multimodal Information Access
• Head Motion Synthesis for Lifelike Conversational Agents
• Multi-Unit Acoustic Models for Speech Recognition
• Induction of Wide-Coverage Categorial Lexicon from Large Amounts of Unlabeled Text
• Use of Intonation in Spoken Language Generation for Human-Machine Dialogue
• Temporal Semantics
• Grammar-Driven Language Models
• Automated Musical Analysis
• The Statistical Semantic Web
• Extracting and Using Alternatives in Question Answering
• Projecting Discourse Annotation from Parallel Corpora

Institute for Computing Systems Architecture

• Data Integration and Data Mining
• Grid Computing
• Speculative Parallelisation for Multiprocessors
• Cellular Multiprocessors
• Skeletal Parallel Programming
• Memory-Hierarchy and On-Chip Network Co-Design
• Micro-Architectural Solutions for Fault-Tolerance
• Data-Dependent Processing for Energy-Aware Systems
• Noise-Tolerant Asynchronous Circuits
• Top-Down Testability for Self-Timed Circuits
• Delay Fault Testing of Self-Timed Circuits
• Dynamic Spectrum Access in Heterogeneous Wireless Network Environments
• Cross-Layer and Coding Techniques for Reliable and Efficient Wireless Networking
• Low-Cost, Robust Networking and Applications for Developing Regions
• Auto-Parallelisation
• Compilers that Learn to Optimise
• Processor Design
• Reconfigurable Caches
• Searching the Embedded Program Optimisation Space
• Energy and Area Modelling for Architecture Synthesis
• Low-Power Multi-Threaded Architectures
• Reconfigurable Data-Parallel Structures for Embedded Computation
• Combinatorial Optimisation

Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour

• Behaviour Composition in Video Sequence Analysis
• Fragmentary Behaviour Recognition in Video Sequence Analysis
• High Speed 3D Video Data Analysis
• Insect Robotics

Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science

• Engineering Electronic Proof
• Independence-Friendly Temporal Logic
• Questions on Modal mu-Calculi
• Archiving of Scientific Data
• Integrity Constraints for XML and Beyond
• Keys for XML
• Provenance in Databases
• Information Preserving Schema Mapping
• Vectorizing XML
• Algorithms for the SAT problem
• Randomized Algorithms for Transportation Polytopes
• Complexity of Approximate Counting
• Rule-Based Models of Biological Signalling
• Algorithmic Verification of Recursive Probabilistic Systems
• Schema-Directed XML Publishing
• A Security Model for XML
• XML Query Languages
• Data Cleaning
• Schema Matching, Mapping and Embedding
• Partial Evaluation and Distributed Query Processing
• Performance Modelling with Process Algebras
• Computational Models for Systems Biology
• Continuous-State process calculi: Methods and Tools
• Combining Model Checking and Theorem Proving
• Data Exchange
• Databases and Verification
• A Logic of Computational Effects
• Algebraic and Logical Foundations of Formal Software Development
• Proof Carrying Code for the Grid
• Security for Mobile Devices
• Topological Models of Computation
• Constructive Set Theories and their Applications
• Proof Theory for Programs and Processes
• Type Systems for Computational Effects
• Mathematical Models for Concurrent and Mobile Computation
• Modalities for Name Generation: Logic, Proof and the Meaning of New
• "Bad Smells" in Code
• Combinations and Abstractions of Formal Games
• Decision Procedures for Higher-Order Grammars
• Links: Web Programming, Faster, Better, Cheaper

Further information

• Graduate study in Informatics at Edinburgh
• The School of Informatics
• The University of Edinburgh

You can email queries about admissions our Graduate Secretary, while queries about the research topics above can be sent to individual members of teaching staff.

Your application form should be returned by mid-March. Earlier applications have access to a wider range of sources of financial aid. Applications for an Overseas Research Student award should be completed by mid-February at the latest, with an application submitted at the same time or earlier. Chinese applicants who are interested in funding from the China Scholarship Council should apply by late January at the latest.

See our PhD application FAQ for detailed information about the application process, and our PhD funding FAQ for information about financial aid.