Course summary

The PhD is the primary research degree that can be taken in the Department of Computer Science and Technology. The Cambridge PhD is a three to four-year full-time (or part-time equivalent) programme of individual research on a topic agreed by the student and the Department, under the guidance of a staff member as the student's supervisor. The UKRI AI CDT in Decision Making for Complex Systems is a programme offered in conjunction with the University of Manchester that aims to enable students to develop new fundamental AI capabilities in the context of a diversity of complex systems. Rather than working in isolation, as is usual in AI, the students will learn to develop these in a collaborative manner tied to a specific application domain. The CDT is focused on three areas, Uncertainty in complex systems, Decision-making with humans in the loop and Decision-making for ML systems. Model interpretability and explainability will be transversal to the three topics. Decision making with AI needs to be interpretable and explainable to facilitate interrogation of decision processes such that trust can be built by the human, and it is essential for understanding and meeting ethical and legal implications. This CDT programme requires students to complete one year of training at the University of Manchester leading to award of a Postgraduate Diploma in Artificial Intelligence, followed by research for a PhD degree at either the University of Manchester or Cambridge. Applications for admission to the CDT programme are made to the University of Manchester in the first instance. Successful applicants who chose a research project at the University of Cambridge will be invited to apply for admission to this PhD. Further information about the course and how to submit an application can be found here https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/admissions/phd. Important: Applications to this PhD programme will only be considered from students who are registered on the UKRI AI CDT in Decision Making for Complex Systems at the University of Manchester.