UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Safe and Trusted Artificial Intelligence

The UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Safe and Trusted Artificial Intelligence (STAI) brings together world leading experts from King’s College London and Imperial College London to train a new generation of researchers in methods of safe and trusted artificial intelligence (AI).

AI technologies are increasingly ubiquitous in modern society, with the potential to fundamentally change all aspects of our lives. While there is great interest in deploying AI in existing and new applications, serious concerns remain about the safety and trustworthiness of current AI technologies. These concerns are well-founded: there is now ample evidence in several application domains (autonomous vehicles, image recognition, etc.) that some AI systems may currently be unsafe in allowing undesired and sometimes incorrect behaviour, also bringing a lack of trust in their actions and decisions.

For an AI system to be considered safe, we need some assurance about the correctness of its behaviour. For an AI system to be considered trusted, the average user needs well-placed confidence in the system and its decision making, and it must be developed responsibly, with meaningful consideration of the wide-ranging potential social, legal and environmental implications, so as to uphold and promote societal values.

Centres for Doctoral Training are unique in their cohort-based approach to PhD training. Students within the STAI CDT engage closely with their peers and are part of a collaborative community. Students regularly come together for training activities, shared lab space is provided, and there are a range of cohort building activities.

Exciting fully funded opportunities to be aligned with the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Safe and Trusted Artificial Intelligence for 2024

The UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Safe and Trusted Artificial Intelligence is inviting applicants to be considered for a fully-funded studentship, to be aligned with the Centre and registered at King’s College London. Committed to providing an inclusive environment in which diverse students can thrive, we particularly encourage applications from women, people with disabilities, people from ethnic minorities, and people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are currently all under-represented in the sector.

Aligned students are students who benefit from the Centre’s activities but whose funding does not come directly from the Centre. In practice, aligned students’ experience is very similar to that of students funded by the Centre; aligned students are embedded within the cohort and expected to engage with the training and cohort activities.

Funding

Different studentships are available. All are fully funded; that is, they each cover tuition fees, provide a tax-free stipend, and include a Research Training and Support Grant (an allowance for things like research consumables, additional training, trips to conferences etc).

Important: Please check individual project descriptions for full studentship details.

How to apply

The deadline to apply for October 2024 entry is 15 April.

See here for more details on how to apply and FAQs. Please check individual project details for both application and funding information.

Note that new projects may be added to the projects available at the Centre, please check this page regularly to review the projects on offer.

Find out more

Available PhD projects: