4-Year PhD Programme in Cyber Security for the Everyday

Ten fully-funded PhD studentships for research in cyber security for the everyday, commencing in September 2019.

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security (CDT) at Royal Holloway was first established in 2013 and has its main objective to develop cohorts of multidisciplinary researchers with a broad understanding of cyber security and a strong appreciation of the interplay between technical and social issues.

Research in the CDT will address challenges concerning:

• The technologies deployed in digital systems that people use, sometimes inadvertently every day
• The everyday societal experience and practice of security

The CDT is centred around Royal Holloway’s Information Security Group and partners with departments throughout the institution. CDT researchers follow a four-year PhD programme. The first year consists of comprehensive multidisciplinary cyber security training. The remaining three years focus on research in an advanced topic in the field of cyber security.

The CDT offers researchers :

• A four-year PhD programme consisiting of a Taught Element, a Research Element and an Internship
• Exposure to multi-disciplinary thinking and group working
• Support for internships with external industry and government partners
• A collaborative research environment

CDT students have conducted internships at organisations such as Cloudfare, The Cabinet Office, Crypto Quantique, Thales Australia, HP Inc., Mozilla Foundation, Microsoft Research Redmond, and NATO SHAPE.

Entry requirements

Applicants should have, or be expecting to obtain, a high-quality (ideally first class) undergraduate or masters (ideally distinction) degree in a relevant discipline. Suitable backgrounds are (but not limited to) computer science, criminology, economics, electronics engineering, geography, geopolitics, information security, law, mathematics, philosophy, politics, psychology, software engineering and war studies. We will also consider applicants with a professional background, so long as they are able to provide evidence of demonstrable academic skills as well as practical experience.

CDT Studentships

CDT studentships fund four years of study, covering the annual university fees, and providing a highly competitive stipend. To be considered for one of the studentships, candidates will need to satisfy the EPSRC funding eligibility criteria. In particular, to be eligible for a full award (stipend and fees), a student must have:

• settled status in the UK, meaning they have no restrictions on how long they can stay,
• been ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK for three years prior to the start of the grant. This means they must have been normally residing in the UK (apart from temporary or occasional absences); and,
• not been residing in the UK wholly or mainly for the purpose of full-time education. (This does not apply to UK or EU nationals).