Our PhD Actuarial Science is a research degree within our Department of Mathematical Sciences. We have staff members available to act as supervisors across a number of areas such as; survival analysis, forensic economics, risk management, Islamic finance and takaful, asset-liability management for pension funds, predictability of financial time series, and performance evaluation of funds. You are also invited to contact our Department to discuss other potential research areas.
Our staff are strongly committed to research and teaching. They have published several well-regarded text books and are world leaders in their individual specialisms, with their papers appearing in learned journals such as: Journal of the Operational Research Society, The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research, Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, ASTIN Bulletin, North American Actuarial Journal, and Journal of Banking & Finance.
Our Department of Mathematical Sciences is genuinely innovative and student-focused. Our research groups are working on a broad range of collaborative areas tackling real-world issues. Here are a few examples:
- Our data scientists carefully consider how not to lie, and how not to get lied to with data. Interpreting data correctly is especially important because much of our data science research is applied directly or indirectly to social policies, including health, care and education.
- We do practical research with financial data (for example, assessing the risk of collapse of the UK’s banking system) as well as theoretical research in financial instruments such as insurance policies or asset portfolios.
- We also research how physical processes develop in time and space. Applications of this range from modelling epilepsy to modelling electronic cables.
- Our optimisation experts work out how to do the same job with less resource, or how to do more with the same resource.
- Our pure maths group are currently working on two new funded projects entitled ‘Machine learning for recognising tangled 3D objects’ and ‘Searching for gems in the landscape of cyclically presented groups’.
- We also do research into mathematical education and use exciting technologies such as electroencephalography or eye tracking to measure exactly what a learner is feeling. Our research aims to encourage the implementation of ‘the four Cs’ of modern education, which are critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.
You can also study this course part-time.
Why we’re great.
- Students have access to software including MATLAB, R, and LaTeX.
- Our Department of Mathematical Sciences has an international reputation in many areas like such as semi-group theory, optimisation, probability, applied statistics, bioinformatics and mathematical biology.
- Work alongside our staff who are strongly committed to research and teaching.