The Department of Statistics admits doctoral students each year to a programme of instruction and research leading to the Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Statistics degree. A doctorate normally requires between three and four years of full-time study.  It can be in any of the subject areas for which supervision is available.

StatML is a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) based at Imperial and Oxford. It will train the next generation of researchers in statistics and statistical machine learning, who will develop widely-applicable novel methodology and theory, as well as create application-specific methods, leading to breakthroughs in real-world problems in government, medicine, industry and science.

The CDT in Fundamentals of AI will undertake foundational developments in fundamentals of AI that have potential to impact within four humane themes; health and medical science; food security and sustainable agriculture; climate change and clean energy; and government innovation and era of artificial intelligence.

We train doctoral students in cutting-edge, systems approaches to biomedical research — and, uniquely within the UK, also in advanced practices in software engineering. Our goal is to bring about a transformation of the research culture in computational biomedical science. If you are interested in biomedical applications of statistics, this CDT offers fully funded places to study in the Department.

The Oxford EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Health Data Science offers a four-year doctoral programme, beginning with two terms of intensive training in core data science principles and techniques, and their application to at-scale health data. The training – and subsequent research supervision – is provided by academics from the departments of Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering Science, Medicine and Population Health.

UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for the Environment

Intelligent Earth brings together academics from key environmental science and AI departments across Oxford (including Statistics) with non-academic partners to train a new generation of DPhil (PhD) students to tackle some of the most pressing environmental issues using AI through five closely connected themes. The five themes are Climate, Biodiversity, Natural hazards, Environmental solutions and Core AI research.

The MSc by Research in Statistics is similar to a doctorate, but the research project is designed to take 2 to 3 years. It is not intended as a first step towards a DPhil, but rather as an alternative. There are no required lectures, classes or written examinations. It can be in any of the subject areas for which supervision is available.

Those undertaking an MSc by Research are admitted as Probationer Research Students in the same way as those intending to do a DPhil. Thus it is therefore possible to switch between the two. The same standards are applied for admission for the two degrees.