Programme overview

The standard route of our PhD programme is full time (3-4 years). PhD research may also be done on a part time basis in exceptional cases (5-6 years). 

Milestones

Students need to complete the following ‘milestones’ to demonstrate that their work is progressing well:

• Within 3 months of starting:
  Submit a short research plan , summarising the problem they have been set, and their proposed plan to work on it.
• Within 12 months of starting (24 months for part-time): 
  Submit a report summarising the first year’s work, including courses taken. There is a short oral examination to assess this.
• Within 24 months of starting (48 months for part-time):
  Submit a report describing progress so far, and a work plan for completing the thesis. Assessed with a short oral examination.

Please visit the PhD Progression Milestones guidelines for a complete picture of the programme.

Courses

In the first two years students should satisfy 100 hours of postgraduate courses in their research topic and related areas. These courses can be workshops, conferences and/or postgraduate lectures in many areas of Mathematics, including:

• Any of our MSc programmes
• The Taught Course Centre (Pure and Applied Mathematics)
• The London Taught Course Centre (Statistics)
• The London Graduate School in Mathematical Finance (Advanced courses in mathematical finance, primarily but not exclusively for first-year PhD students)
• The MAGIC group, a partnership of 20 UK universities