PhD Computer Science

An Integrated PhD provides a route into research study if you do not have a Masters degree, or have very little research training. It enables you to spend your first year completing a Masters-level qualification, followed by a full-time PhD studied over three to four years. We also offer a ‘standard' PhD in this subject which can be studied either full-time (three to four years) or part-time (six to seven years). In your first year, this course provides you with the flexibility to master the areas of computing that interest and excite you most. You choose from a range of topics including: intelligent systems and robotics machine learning and data mining human language understanding and text processing computer game development cloud and web technologies computer security evolutionary computation In your second year you move into the PhD element of the course. Our research activity and supervision for the research part of this degree is concentrated in the following principal research areas: artificial intelligence biologically inspired architectures educational technology e-learning natural and evolutionary computation natural language engineering software agents software engineering Our cross-disciplinary projects draw on the expertise of our electronic engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists and psychologists. Our work is supported by extensive networked computer facilities and software aids, together with a wide range of test and instrumentation equipment. Our research covers a range of topics, from the theory of computation and the philosophy of computer science, computational intelligence and computer games, to artificial intelligence and robotics, with most of our research groups based around laboratories offering world-class facilities. Our impressive external research funding stands at multi-million pounds per year and we participate in a number of EU initiatives and undertake projects under contract to many outside bodies, including government and industrial organisations. Our School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering is a community of scholars leading the way in technological research and development. Today's computer scientists are creative people who are focused and committed, yet restless and experimental. We are home to many of the world's top scientists, and our work is driven by creativity and imagination as well as technical excellence. That's why we are ranked 6th in the UK for research power in computer science (Times Higher Education research power measure, Research Excellence Framework 2021).