The internship takes place in July and August and lasts eight weeks. The interns will undertake a research project with supervision from an academic staff member from our community of world-leading researchers. Interns will also have daily contact with doctoral students, post-doctoral researchers or other academic supervisors.

A bursary of £4,218 is available to enable participation regardless of financial means. Accommodation will be provided at one of Oxford’s colleges for the duration of the internship.

The programme is designed to:

• enhance research skills and provide opportunities to work towards producing publishable research
• enhance ability to make a competitive application to postgraduate courses
• introduce participants to leading researchers and staff at the University of Oxford
• help address gender imbalances, particularly at doctoral level.

Applications for the internship programme in summer 2026 will open in December 2025.

As part of the application process, applicants are asked to specify the research areas of interest. Successful applicants are then matched to a supervisor in an appropriate area. Please note that it is not always possible to match applicants to their first choice due to supervision constraints.

The research areas are:

• Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
• Computational Statistics and Machine Learning
• Econometrics and Population Statistics
• Probability
• Statistical and Computational Biology and Medicine (Oxford Protein Informatics Group)
• Statistical Genetics and Epidemiology
• Statistical Theory and Methodology

Please note that the research areas available this year are still to be confirmed.

A list of academics and their specific research is available on the DPhil in Statistics page.

Examples of past projects are available on the past projects page.

Students from any university in the UK or Ireland are welcome to apply. Applicants for the Statistics Summer Research Internships Programme must:

• be ordinarily resident in the UK without any restrictions on how long they can stay. UK residence should not have been wholly or mainly for the purpose of receiving full-time education
• be currently undertaking an undergraduate (including an integrated master’s) degree in Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science or a closely related subject, and be in at least the second year of a course at a UK or Irish university
• be on track to achieve a final undergraduate degree grade of a strong 2:1 or First.

We welcome applications from all talented individuals and are particularly keen to receive applications from female candidates as they are underrepresented in this field.

Apply via the online application form (Microsoft Forms).

As part of the application process you will be required to submit supporting documents (including your CV, transcripts and a supporting statement) as PDF's, and provide the contact details for two referees. Below is more information on supplying these details.

Please be aware that you will need to be available for eight weeks of the internship, although a couple of days for a specific reason, such as graduation or a religious observance is permitted.

PLEASE NOTE - the link above is to apply to the Statistics Summer Research Internship Programme. Please go to the UNIQ+ website, if you are looking to apply for the UNIQ+ Research Internship programme.

Assessment of your Application

Selection for the Statistics Summer Research Internships Programme will be made on the basis of the following information collected in the application form:

• your academic merit and potential to do research in the relevant field, as evidenced by your academic record and references; and
• female applicants may be given preference in the assessment process because this group is underrepresented in research degree programmes in Statistics. The university is taking positive action under the Equality Act 2010 to tackle the under-representation of female UK-resident students in statistics subjects at Oxford and to encourage more female students to apply for graduate study.

Successful Applications

If you are successful, you will receive an email confirming your place on the internship programme, what you’ll need to do next and information on how to prepare for your research placement.

Unsuccessful Applications

If you aren’t successful, you might be placed on a waiting list – if so, we will let you know when you can expect to hear whether you’ve secured a place.