PhD Financial Mathematics: The University of Manchester

Course description

Opportunities for Postgraduate research are available in a wide range of topics in Probability and Statistics.

Students may enter their graduate programme in Statistics by initially taking our taught M.Sc. course over 1 year. This, subject to satisfactory progress, can lead to admission to the PhD programme.

The Probability and Statistics group comprises 16 members of staff and has an international reputation for its research with 20% of its activity rated 'world leading' in the RAE 2008 (the group's research activity in Probability was flagged as 5* in the RAE 2001).

Mathematical Finance is a very active branch of Probability Theory and Mathematics in general. It is probably one of the few areas in academic research which interact constantly with their field of application and with a huge impact on the daily functioning of the world's financial institutions.

There is a long tradition of Probability and Statistics at Manchester - the chair in Mathematical Statistics is one of the oldest established chairs in the UK. Previous members of staff include such well known names as Bartlett, Cane, Gani, Laycock, Papangelou, Parthasarathy, Priestley, Subba Rao and Whittle.

PhD and MPhil supervision is provided in all areas of research of the group. This includes three main areas of specialisation (listed alphabetically): (i) Financial Mathematics; (ii) Probability; (iii) Statistics.

Entry requirements

Academic entry qualification overview: Applicants would usually be expected to have a 1st or upper 2nd class honours degree (or an equivalent overseas qualification) in a mathematical subject. In some research areas a background in physics, engineering or computer science is also acceptable.

English language: Students whose first language is not English require a minimum score of IELTS 6.5 or TOEFL 570 (paper-based) with not less than 5.0 in the TOEFL essay section of the test or 90 (ibtTOEFL).