The School of Informatics hosts a number of Centres for Doctoral Training (CDT), funded by the UKRI Research Councils. These PhD with integrated study programmes promote interdisciplinary study and collaboration with other universities and industrial partners, combining PhD study with taught courses, industrial placements and other training opportunities.
The UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Biomedical Innovation will teach students to use AI to improve the diagnosis, understanding, management, and treatment of disease. Students will be trained to practise responsible and trustworthy use of AI in research, which is fundamental to maintaining the public’s trust in the use of health data.
A wealth of expertise from across the University, national bodies, external partners and expert advisory and patient involvement and engagement groups will support the programme.
Students in the CDT in Biomedical Innovation will work with external partners in the private and public sectors to ensure their research addresses critical challenges in healthcare maximising the potential for AI to have a positive impact on society.
The CDT will build upon the expertise and connections of the existing CDT in Biomedical AI.
The UKRI AI Centre of Doctoral Training in Designing Responsible NLP is dedicated to addressing the increasing necessity for an ethically grounded approach in AI technologies. As NLP becomes more integral to applications like personal assistants (Siri, Alexa), chatbots (such as ChatGPT), and other generative AI, the stakes are higher than ever. Ensuring these systems are responsibly integrated into our daily lives requires a deep understanding of their operational mechanisms and societal impacts.
Doctoral students of the centre will engage in an interdisciplinary educational experience that spans the technical, social, design, and legal domains of AI. The curriculum is designed to foster understanding across these diverse fields, emphasizing collaboration and the development of hybrid expertise. This is your opportunity to contribute to building AI systems that are not only advanced but are also equitable, sustainable, and sensitive to the complex social fabrics they operate within.
Embrace the challenge of steering the future of AI by ensuring it is both responsible and trustworthy. Join us at the forefront of shaping AI to serve global needs responsibly.
Machine Learning has a dramatic impact on our daily lives built on the back of improved computer systems. Systems research and ML research are symbiotic. Modern systems research targets the ubiquitous need for efficient ML. ML research, conversely, is directly affected by how methods will be deployed. Furthermore, systems research increasingly explores ML methods to improve systems, and ML research develops such methods.
This CDT will develop researchers with expertise across the systems-ML stack. Company engagement is an integral part of the programme with built-in internships alongside entrepreneurship training. The PhD programme in Machine Learning Systems will position students for strong, ethically aware technical careers, developing the next generation of leaders.
Students must have a broad understanding of different hardware designs, different platforms, different environments, different models, and different goals beyond their immediate research focus. Individual supervisory teams rarely have this breadth of knowledge. This makes a cohort-based CDT vital, treating ML Systems as a holistic discipline. Cohort interaction, and integration gives students real experience across multiple systems, approaches and methodologies.
Quantum technology will revolutionise many aspects of life and bring enormous benefits to the economy and society. The new Centre for Doctoral Training in Quantum Informatics will provide advanced training in the structure, behaviour, and interaction of quantum hardware, software, and applications. The training programme spans computer sciences, mathematics, physics, and engineering, and will enable the use of quantum technology in a way that is integrable, interoperable, and impactful, rather than developing the hardware itself.
The training programme targets three research challenges with a strong focus on end user impact: (i) quantum service architecture concerns how to design quantum networks and devices most usefully; (ii) scalable quantum software is about feasible application at scale of quantum technology and its integration with other software; and (iii) quantum application analysis investigates how quantum technology can be used most advantageously to solve end user problems.
The programme offers a fully funded intensive 4-year PhD with integrated study programme that equips students with the skills needed to tackle the research challenges of quantum informatics. The programme includes bespoke training by the National Quantum Computing Centre, and the opportunity to work with over 30 industry partners. Graduates will be able to integrate quantum hardware with high-performance computing, design effective quantum software, and apply this in a societally meaningful way.
UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Dependable and Deployable Artificial Intelligence for Robotics will be led by Heriot-Watt University in partnership with the University of Edinburgh.
To make a difference in our homes and workplaces, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence technologies - such as AI assistants for independent living, manufacturing and construction robots or robots working in extreme conditions - need to be safe, dependable, and trustworthy. While AI methods are finding increasing adoption within robotics, these technologies were not originally designed with safety and other human-centred requirements in mind. Making AI suitable for such dependable and deployable products will require a new way of thinking.
CDT-D2AIR will train experts who can think in new ways around researching, designing, building, and deploying dependable and safe robotics and AI solutions.
The School currently hosts students in 3 CDTs that have admitted their final cohorts and are no longer accepting applications.
The CDT offers an interdisciplinary training programme covering technical AI skills, biomedical foundations and individually tailored training on understanding the societal aspects of Biomedical AI.
Students benefit from cutting-edge computing and experimental facilities, including a large GPU cluster and eye-tracking, speech, virtual reality, and visualisation labs.
The Centre addresses key challenges for managing interactions between robots and their environments, between multiple autonomous systems, and between robots and people.
The centre is supported by Edinburgh’s world-class infrastructure in robotics.
