Research Studentships
Explore UCL Statistics research studentships: funding, opportunities, and support for PhD students to advance statistical science through innovative research and collaboration.
Departmental Funding
Deadline for Applications: 9 Jan 26
Applications are invited for at least four (4) PhD Studentships, based at the Department of Statistical Science, UCL. The positions can involve any topic within the Statistical Science remit. The positions are open to both Home and Overseas applicants. Successful applicants are expected to start their PhD studies in October 2026.
The Department is among the three largest Statistics groups in the UK with more than 30 academic members of staff. Research in the Department is organised into six themes: Causality; Computational Statistics and Machine Learning; Economics, Finance and Business; Environmental Statistics; Probability; Statistics in Biomedicine and Health Economics. Research often cuts across these areas. Much of the research is interdisciplinary and involves collaborations within and outside UCL.
Each of the Departmental Studentships will be 3.5 years in duration (or 6 years for part-time students) and will cover the full tuition fees, an annual maintenance stipend (this was £24,280 for 2025/26, with some rise expected to be applied for 2026/27 and for each of the subsequent years during the PhD) and an allowance for research expenses (e.g., conference participation, training).
Full-time students will spend 6 months of their time for teaching (spread across the 3.5 years) and devote the remainder of their time to undertaking their research.
Person Specification
The requirement for admission to the MPhil/PhD in Statistical Science is a 1st class or high upper 2nd class Bachelor’s degree, or a Master’s degree with merit or distinction, in Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative discipline. International qualifications of an equivalent standard are also acceptable. Further details can be found on the Departmental website.
The requirements for applying for the studentships are detailed in the Departmental Studentship person specification.
How to Apply
Candidates will need to identify and be in contact with a prospective supervisor in the department in advance of submitting an application.
Step 1: All candidates should first apply for admission to a MPhil/PhD in Statistical Science by visiting the relevant UCL website.
Step 2: The following two documents should then be sent to stats.pgr-admissions@ucl.ac.uk, after changed into a PDF format:
1. Funding application form (link to Word document to be completed by the candidate)
2. Supervisor reference form (link to Word document to be completed and sent by the prospective supervisor)
Step 3: For an application to be completed, candidates should also fill in the following online form:
Diversity Data Form (link to Microsoft Form to be completed by the candidate)
Applications must be submitted by the deadline of 9 Jan 26, with shortlisting decisions made very soon after this date. Interviews are expected to take place in the last weeks of January, and are typically held online.
UCL Funding
UCL prestigious Research Excellence Scholarship (UCL-RES) aims to attract outstanding scholars to undertake doctoral research at UCL. The University is offering 40 UCL Research Excellence Scholarships - across all UCL Departments - to exceptional applicants from any country.
Full details on these scholarships, including the eligibility requirements and application procedure are available from the link below.
As described at the linked webpage above, at the section termed "How to apply", there are two steps that must be followed for the submission of an application. The second step is the one described in the linked webpage under the title "Step 2 - submit your scholarship application documents to your academic department", and it involves the submission of a number of forms to the Department of Statistical Science. The contact in the Department of Statistical Science for the submission of these forms is:
Ms Marina Lewis
stats.pgr-admissions AT ucl.ac.uk
The deadline for completing all steps of the application procedure is 9 January 2026.
The UCL EPSRC Landscape Award (UELA) will provide 50 4-year studentships for 2025/26. Prospective students may apply to any of a number of projects available.
Studentships are open to both Home and International fee status students, however EPSRC caps the number of International students at 30% so a maximum of 15 International students can be recruited and competition for these places will be particularly strong.
Studentships are expected to start on 01-Oct-2026 unless exceptional circumstances require an alternate start date.
For all relevant information, and details of the application process, please visit:
Upon accessing the above website, you will be able to locate a number of projects submitted by academic members of our department (alongside projects submitted by academics from various other departments). You can select these projects when completing your application.
The aim of the UCL-ROS is to address under-representation and help improve equality, diversity and inclusion in UCL’s post-graduate research student body. The scholarship offers full financial support and a skills development programme, both designed to promote academia as a more attractive career option.
See the Research Opportunity Scholarship website for full details. In particular, our departmental contact mentioned at "Step 3" of the section "How to apply" is the following:
Ms Marina Lewis
stats.pgr-admissions AT ucl.ac.uk
The deadline for applications is 9 January 2026.
Funding offered by UCL and the China Scholarships Council (CSC) aims to expand the educational, cultural and technological co-operation between the UK and China. Candidates must be citizens and permanent residents of the People’s Republic of China at the time of application. Some more eligibility criteria apply - see the "Eligibility" section at the Scholarships' website for the full list of criteria. Applicants must apply first to UCL via the procedures described below and, if successfull in their UCL application, they must then apply to CSC.
Funding is available for:
- Scheme (A): up to 10 studentships at the Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences (this Faculty includes the Department of Statistical Science) - this scheme is referred to as Dean's Prize.
- Scheme (B): up to 5 studentships in any subject area in accordance with the CSC’s priorities, including areas covered by the Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences (this Faculty includes the Department of Statistical Science) - this scheme is part of the UCL Research Excellence Scholarships (UCL-RES).
Scheme (A): This scheme is referred to as Dean's Prize.
To be considered for 1 of the up to 10 studentships in the Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences, candidates must follow the instructions in the dedicated Dean's Prize website. In particular, the documents mentioned in that website should be sent by email to the following contact at the Department of Statistical Science:
Ms Marina Lewis
stats.pgr-admissions AT ucl.ac.uk
The deadline for sending all above described documents to the provided email address is 14 January 2026.
Scheme (B): This scheme is part of the UCL Research Excellence Scholarship (RES).
To be considered for 1 of up to 5 studentships in any subject area in accordance with the CSC’s priorities, including areas covered by the Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences, candidates must first submit an application for the UCL Research Excellence Scholarship (RES) before submitting an application to the CSC. UCL will then select its five CSC-UCL Joint Research Scholars from the pool of students that applied to the RES. Full application instructions can be found on the RES webpage.
All applicants for the UCL-RES, who have an overseas fee status and satisfy the eligibility criteria for the CSC-UCL studentships will automatically be considered for the latter ones via Scheme (B). There is no need to submit a separate application to UCL beyond the one submitted for the UCL-RES scholarship. If successful in their UCL application, candidates must then also apply to CSC.
The deadline for completing all steps of the application procedure for a UCL-RES is 9 January 2026.
Eligibility Criteria and Timeline for both Schemes (A) and (B):
Candidates can apply separately for both Schemes (A) and (B). All details on the eligibility criteria and the timeline on the announcement of results can be found here:
Doctoral Training Centres
CCMI is a collaboration between UCL and Imperial College with an aim to offer a novel and innovative PhD training programme at the interface of computational modelling, data sciences, and research software engineering.
Students will join world-class research groups across UCL and Imperial, and will benefit from a bespoke training programme around research software engineering and its applications in the computational and data sciences.
Interested students should apply directly via CCMI's website, following the link below.
The SECReT international centre for PhD training in security and crime science at UCL offers 4 year PhD scholarships to students interested in multidisciplinary security- or crime-related research degrees, which may have a strong overlap with areas of statistics.
Interested students should apply directly for admission to the Department of Security and Crime Science. It may be advantageous to discuss research topics with staff members in the Department of Statistical Science so that they may be identified as potential supervisors at the time of application.
The Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science (DIS) offers 4 year PhD scholarships. DIS encompasses a wide range of areas in the field of 'big-data' including the collection, storage and analysis of large datasets, as well as the use of complex models, algorithms and machine learning techniques to interpret the data. Over 80 academics from across UCL are involved in the Centre, including some from the Department of Statistical Science.
Interested students should apply directly for admission to the Department of Physics and Astronomy. It may be advantageous to discuss research topics with staff members in the Department of Statistical Science so that they may be identified as potential supervisors at the time of application.
Supervisors from our Department are amongst the list of academics who have provided projects for this Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT).
UNRISK will train students with the multidisciplinary knowledge and skills across climate science, data science and decision science to tackle the pressing challenge of reducing the risks associated with rapid climate change.
As a PhD student in UNRISK you will benefit from:
- Exciting research projects at the University of Leeds, University College London and the University of Exeter aimed at improving climate change predictions, understanding its impacts, and providing the best possible information to improve decision-making.
- Training in skills and competencies sought by employers, including climate science, data science and decision science.
- Involvement of over thirty industry partners including climate prediction centres, consultancies, regulatory bodies and AI start-ups.
- A collaborative cohort approach working with and learning from other students tackling a common challenge.
UNRISK will fund 40 PhD students in cohorts of 12-15 per year over three years, providing them tuition fees and a stipend for a period of 3 years 9 months which includes the expectation PhD Students will undertake a placement and also take part in cohort based residential research events.
UNRISK has recruited the first cohort of 14 students who started their PhDs in October 2025. There will be two more rounds of recruitment.
Interested students should apply directly via UNRISK's website, following the link below.