UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Natural Language Processing PhD with Integrated Study

Find out more about compulsory and optional courses

We link to the latest information available. Please note that this may be for a previous academic year and should be considered indicative.

Most students can choose to undertake at least one optional internship during their PhD.

This is an important aspect of your training, providing team working, project management, and software engineering experience.

It also exposes students to a company-focused research culture, and provides them with valuable contacts for future job searches.

Many of the CDT's industrial partners will consider hosting students as interns.

The CDT aims to attract students from a diverse range of backgrounds, including computer science, AI, maths and statistics, engineering, linguistics, cognitive science and psychology.

This interdisciplinary cohort requires a training approach that is more flexible than the standard three-year PhD, which is why this programme takes the form of a four-year PhD with integrated training.

It interleaves training at the level of a master's degree (180 credits of courses and project work) with PhD research. The advantages of this structure are:

• By mixing courses and PhD work, you gradually progress from classroom teaching to independent research. At the same time, research will inform your learning experience from the first day, and you can immediately apply skills learned in the classroom to your PhD project.

• You can take the courses that are relevant to your research when you need them, rather than having to anticipate all your training needs in advance and front-load all your courses in year 1.

• The degree structure allows for maximum flexibility to accommodate a cohort of students with a wide range of backgrounds. Students who have a lot of prior NLP training, for example, would be expected to do a research-heavy first year (followed by advanced courses informed by their PhD project), while students with less relevant backgrounds can take a larger number of foundational courses upfront.

• While all students select an individual set of courses, there are also shared components that everyone takes which, together with a programme of staff- and student-led events, will promote cohort formation (for example, the annual CDT Festival, the bi-monthly Language Lunch, the NLP Speaker Series, industry days).

An example Degree Programme Table (DPT) is available (however, note that this is for indication only and the exact DPT for the year of entry may vary slightly from what is advertised for the current academic session).

Contemporary research in NLP uses complex machine learning models such as neural networks, and thus requires considerable computing resources.

CDT students will have access to a large GPU (graphics processing unit) cluster and to a 300 terabyte storage array, both dedicated for NLP research.

Edinburgh Compute and Data Facility

Furthermore, you will have access to the Edinburgh Compute and Data Facility (ECDF), a central University resource that maintains a cluster of over 4,000 compute cores and a large high performance storage facility.

Industrial support

A number of our industrial partners provide in-kind support to the CDT in the form of:

• GPU hardware
• access to proprietary datasets

Experimental facilities

Some of the PhD projects conducted under the auspices of the CDT will involve lab-based experiments that investigate human language and speech processing.

You will use our state-of-the-art experimental facility comprising:

• sound studios
• an anechoic chamber
• an eye-tracking lab with three high resolution trackers
• a suite of experimental booths for perception experiments

The Bayes Centre includes a dedicated virtual/augmented reality lab combined with motion capture and eye-tracking.

The demand for NLP practitioners in industry, science, commerce and the public sector outstrips supply.

A wide range of companies are aggressively recruiting well-trained NLP experts because there are relatively few available. The CDT is designed to meet this training need.

Graduates will be part of a new generation of researchers with the technical skills and interdisciplinary awareness to become leaders in NLP.

Our existing research groups have produced graduates who now:

• occupy academic positions in some of the best universities in the world
• work for global leaders in the IT industry
• have jobs with a wide variety of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and start-ups, some of which they have founded

These entry requirements are for the 2023/24 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ.

Please note 2023/24 is the final year of entry for this CDT programme.

A minimum UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in computer science, linguistics, cognitive science, AI, or a related discipline. Most students accepted to the programme hold a first class degree.

Applicants coming directly from a bachelors or masters degree are welcome.

We particularly welcome applications from members of communities under-represented in computer science.

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country

English language requirements

You must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies, regardless of your nationality or country of residence.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 6.5 with at least 6.0 in each component.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 92 with at least 20 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced (CAE) / C2 Proficiency (CPE): total 176 with at least 169 in each component.
• Trinity ISE: ISE II with distinctions in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 62 with at least 59 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS, TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE, in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than three and a half years old at the beginning of your programme of study.

Find out more about our language requirements:

• English language requirements

Academic Technology Approval Scheme

If you are not an EU, EEA or Swiss national, you may need an Academic Technology Approval Scheme clearance certificate in order to study this programme.

• Academic Technology Approval Scheme

Tutition Fees

• PhD, 4 years, Full time
• PhD, 8 years, Part time

Approximately 12 studentships are available, covering both maintenance at the research council rate currently of £16,062 per year and tuition fees. Studentships are available for all nationalities.

• UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Natural Language Processing - application information

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding