Application Guidance

We will take the best applicants independent of origin. International candidates are eligible for all 20 of our EIT studentships. There is no cap on how many international students we can accept.

All are welcome. We encourage mature students to apply as they bring a different perspective. There is no age limit for applications. We’re interested in experience as well as grades and how we can maximise potential. If you can explain why this is the appropriate course for you at this stage in your career, then we will take your application very seriously. 

If you include an employer as a referee, this should be somebody who can comment on technical work that you have and knows what you've been working on over the last few years from a tech perspective. They should be able to explain why you are a good fit for the programme.

Yes, the university list of international qualifications list of countries is not exhaustive and we will use other comparison sources such as https://www.ecctis.com/  for countries not listed.

The application fee to apply to our CDT is £20. This is a standard charge, which is used to support the University’s graduate access and widening participation initiatives for applicants or students from disadvantaged or underrepresented groups at Oxford. This helps us particularly to support applicants and potential applicants from all backgrounds, at every stage of their journey into graduate study at Oxford. You can find more information on some of our Graduate Access programmes on our website.

A range of application fee waiver schemes are available to support applicants for whom the fee would be a barrier to applying.  

Applying to closely related research courses

If you apply to this course and up to two eligible courses during the same application cycle, you can request an application fee waiver so that you only need to pay one application fee. We recommend that you use your application fee waiver to apply only for eligible courses that are closely related in research area to this one. 

To be considered eligible for an application fee waiver, each additional course must be:

• doctoral level eg a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) or Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) course; and
• offered by one of the departments in the MPLS Division or one of the departments in the Medical Sciences Division.

If this is the first eligible course that you are applying to, you can request an application fee waiver for an additional course after you have submitted your application for this course. If you have already applied to another course that meets the eligibility criteria shown above, you should request an application fee waiver before starting an application to this course.

Applying for readmission

If you are currently studying for an Oxford graduate taught course and applying for a research course with no break in your studies, you may be eligible to apply for readmission. You must meet the same deadlines and requirements as other applicants, but you won't be required to pay an application fee. Find more information about readmissions status in this Application Guide. 

It is very common for students to apply to more than one course. The applications will be considered independently. In your application make it clear why you are applying for this particular CDT and why you are suitable. If you are qualified for both programmes (this is rare) you may get on offer on both courses. 

Applications for 2025 entry are now closed

Applications for 2026 entry will open in September 2025. 

We are expecting most applications in January. All applications will be assessed after each deadline and if we get excellent applicants in the first round (January), we will take them then. Therefore, there is a possibility the second round (March) may not happen 

The application for the EIT CDT PhD programme is separate to the Ellison Scholars application process. To be considered for a place on the CDT you will need to make an application through the University of Oxford admissions portal.  

This course is taking part in initiatives to improve the selection procedure for graduate applications and to ensure that all candidates are evaluated fairly.  

In the application you are given the opportunity to fill in a section on any contextual information you want to provide and on your socioeconomic background. This will help us put your application into context. Some students will have had more internships opportunities in research intensive universities than others, in some cases for purely economic reasons. If you have that experience you should certainly put that in the application, but if you haven’t we will take that into account in the contextual information. 

We are looking for you to have excelled in the environment in which you have found yourself, whether that's at your local university or a major International University.  

You are not expected to contact supervisors prior to joining the CDT. Applicants are expected to have an open mind about research they will explore and which supervisors to work with from our supervision pool. While the main supervisor for the DPhil project must be someone within the supervisor pool, students are also encouraged have co-supervision from the EIT research team.  

People will come from different backgrounds, but this is a CDT in the Fundamentals of AI so we will need to know why this is the right CDT for you. We will need to see evidence that you are highly numerate and will be able to follow advanced courses. 

We are looking for individuals with an exceptional academic track record and can demonstrate a high level of performance in a subject of study that involves graduate-level mathematical study. This would normally involve successfully completing undergraduate and possibly further postgraduate study in subjects such as mathematics, statistics, engineering, computer science or physics. If you do not have this formal academic background you will need to be able to demonstrate with other evidence that you are highly numerate and will be able to follow advanced courses in mathematics/computer science. 

We are looking to recruit individuals whose research interests are aligned with our mission and whose academic and professional experience to date meet the following specification:

• Delivered an outstanding performance in an undergraduate or postgraduate degree in a subject that involves the extensive study of relevant graduate-level mathematics

We are looking for individuals with an exceptional academic track record and can demonstrate a high level of performance in a subject of study that involves graduate-level mathematical study. This would normally involve successfully completing undergraduate and possibly further postgraduate study in subjects such as mathematics, statistics, engineering, computer science or physics.

• Have demonstrable experience of artificial intelligence research

We are looking for individuals to provide evidence of their interest and commitment to artificial intelligence research commensurate with their career stage. This could involve research projects as part of their formal academic studies, internships or professional work experience.

• Possess a clear motivation for the study of fundamentals of artificial intelligence

We want to understand how your career record and experiences to date have led to an interest in the further study of the fundamentals of AI. We want to see a compelling vision for how this CDT will support your future aspirations.

• Demonstrates an understanding of how the fundamentals of artificial intelligence links to real world impact

While not all FOAI CDT students will have a deep interest in applications of AI and may prefer to focus on theoretical studies only, we want all students to have an appreciation of the link between fundamental AI research and how those outputs can be used in applications. If you are interested in applications, tell us how your interests align with the EIT themes. If not, tell us how you think your theory and methods work could have a range of uses.

• Provides indicators of emerging leadership capabilities

We are seeking individuals who can demonstrate the potential to not only undertake great doctoral research but may have the ability to become leaders in their field and beyond. The CDT will develop these skills during the programme but we want candidates who can give examples where they have demonstrated strong communication skills, the ability to engage and work with others, or taken the initiative and responsibility. Evidence could be in the context of academic or professional work but can also be shown through personal interests, sports and hobbies (e.g. charity work).

AI may be used to assist in researching application materials, but any submitted documents must be written by you and must adhere to the university plagiarism policy, and any text that is not your own should be referenced. All supporting documents must be in English, unless stated otherwise on your course page.  

Supporting documents may not be translated into English by an AI tool as our academic assessors need to understand your powers of expression in English. Our application assessors will be evaluating your ability to undertake critical analysis therefore using AI for more than assistance with initial research is likely to reduce your chances of success.      

If academic assessors consider that inappropriate use of AI was made in application documents they may reject your application. Please note that AI technology to assist with a disability (such as voice recognition software for transcription or spelling and grammar checkers) may be used.  

All candidates who apply to the CDT will automatically be considered for funding. You do not need to add a code in the scholarship part of the application form in the university admissions portal. 

This programme is funded by the Ellison Institute of Technology. We are able to offer up to 20 fully-funded 4-year studentships per year to applicants for this programme. This funding is open to students from any country.

A full 4-year scholarship comprises:

• course fees at the appropriate rate
• a tax-free stipend (£21,237 in 2024-25)
• additional funding to support project costs, training and travel

Our programme will be complimentary to some of the other fantastic CDTs at the University of Oxford. 

In our CDT we would expect every project to link to the EIT Humane Endeavours. Our CDT will work on developing new theories and methods in AI with a breadth of supervisors across departments.

If you are interested in more than one CDT, please apply for both. 

No, this is a full-time in-person course. We have found students didn’t enjoy researching remotely during the pandemic as they missed out on the chance to interact with other students and leading researchers.

We have amazing programmes of seminars and lectures across the university that are all open to students at the university. 

Part of your training will be on thinking about impact beyond academia, this could be in areas such as enterprise & entrepreneurship, IP & commercialization and public engagement.  

Around 40 of the students who've been through the Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) have set up their own companies, several of which have been very successful. With this and in the wider Oxford ecosystem, there's huge opportunities for getting involved in entrepreneurial activities. There's also formal training such as through new programme that's being set up by the Said Business School.

There should be scope to opt in or out of some of this depending on your interests. These activities would have to be done with the knowledge and permission of your supervisor to make sure you're not interfering with any other activities. 

The Ellison Institute of Technology, which is funding the CDT, is a new institute distinct from the university but aligned to it.  The vision of the Institute is to develop and deploy technology in pursuit of four major endeavours facing humanity and it exists to become a really world leading centre in scientific and technology development which delivers something called full stack commercially viable solutions, which is taking a big problem, ambitious problem and solving it from end to end, both from fundamental research all the way through to kind of product and deployment of a solution. 

The CDT will do ground-breaking work in AI that can support endeavours working in four humane endeavours.

We would expect our students to have a lot of opportunities to work with scientists at EIT to enable for them to develop solutions in the four endeavours. You may not be working directly on an EIT research project, but some engagement with researchers would be expected.  

The EIT also has the Ellison scholars programme. The CDT is separate from this but we will be looking to make connections. There will be the opportunity to take part in the the EIT leadership and innovation training with Ellison Scholars and take part in joint events.  

There will be a "booklet" developed over the first year of potential projects.  This will be designed to align with the endeavours of the EIT and developed by our supervisors. You would then meet with supervisors you are interested in working with and the project may then change a little. There might be someone outside of the pool of supervisor who you could work with to get additional expertise in applications.  

Within the Fundamentals of AI there’s huge breadth to what a project could be. We need to be able to find components that have that intersection, with the Humane endeavours, the fundamentals of AI, but with a purpose. The project needs to have the potential for impact. 

If you have been discussing a project you are interested in with a supervisor prior to application you can include this in the personal statement and it may go on to become something you can work on. 

It may be possible. Internships are not a requirement, but many students do take these on during their PhD.

There is a potential to gain huge amount, learn new skills and improve communication skills and you may gain a new perspective on your own research. 

Participation in an internships would be on approval by supervisory and CDT team on a case-by-case basis. 

We would expect a huge variety in what our graduates went on to do.  Some may go on to work at the Ellison Institute and some may create their own start-up.   

We have had around 900 students come through the Doctoral Training Centre and 75% stay on in research, and we expect the same here.

Within the DTC alumni there is a huge range of careers. 

Many have gone on to work as Data Scientists, Research Software Engineers or as researchers within Pharma companies. 

A lot of work has been done on this question and we can only address this in part. 

We can think of a spectrum of research from applications at one end, with domain experts with very precise scientific questions working hands-on with data through to the fundamental end with those working on methods to develop algorithms that can solve a class of problems. We would like to have some kind of confidence in the methods developed and their scalability or generalizability, and this requires theory. In as sense the applications are relying on the methods and the methods are relying on the theory. In this CDT we want the applications to give you a direction in the areas that you research. If you're working towards the theory end of the spectrum, you have to think quite carefully about how your area of theory would support methods. Those methods could be really useful, for example, in the analysis of electronic health records or in the ability to analyse satellite data at scale for climate change.

You need to be able to make a connection between where you are on the spectrum and the ability to make impact in applications. If you're close to the applied area, that impact might be quite immediate and you can see clearly the questions you can address. If you're working more on the theoretical side, it may be less obvious. There needs to be connectivity that you're using the 4 Humane Themes to help guide which bit of the theory looks interesting and is relevant in those endeavours.