PhD Opportunities

Postgraduate Opportunities in High Energy Physics

Positions for October 2025

We are looking for prospective PhD students to work with us on a range of exciting projects in particle physics. For students aiming to start a PhD in October 2025 with a funded scholarship the interviews will take place in February, so applications should be submitted by the 29 of January 2025.

Later applications will be considered until all positions are filled, and as new opportunities arise. We are happy to consider students with external sources of funding and for those students that deadline does not apply.

The position will be within one of our exciting experimental activities (see the particle physics pages) and will be discussed and agreed between the particle physics team and the successful candidate. To apply to this position please contact the Particle Physics PhD Admissions director Prof Neil McCauley and/or also make a formal online application (here) to the University of Liverpool.

Fully Funded Position On LHCb : Available now

We are pleased to advertise a fully funded PhD studentship in Particle Physics with the University of Liverpool. The studentship is available to start now and covers fees (for UK and international students), a research travel grant and a stipend.

The PhD project will explore the use of Machine Learning (ML) techniques for particle tracking in high energy physics experiments.  Compute accelerators such as FPGAs, GPUs, and NPUs will be used to run and evaluate the performance of ML algorithms.  We will use the LHCb experiment as a test environment for studies and the initial target of the project will be to test, evaluate and deploy solutions in the next detector upgrade. Extensions to other experiments can also be explored.  The applicant is expected to have a good aptitude for programming and an appetite for learning about new technologies.

Please feel free to contact Tara Shears (tara.shears@liverpool.ac.uk) with any questions. Instructions for applying for the studentship are given here:

https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/how-to-apply/

(apply listing Tara Shears as the supervisor and use the outline of the research project above). Applications will be open until November 20 or until the position is filled.

Projects for PhD students

If you are interested in a PhD on Particle Physics with us see the list of experiments that our group participates. Within the framework of these experiments, we offer 8-10 positions supported by STFC and other partners. Several projects are also linked with the Liverpool Big Data Science Centre for Doctoral Training. In this website you can find past, current and future opportunities to guide your choice in this very interesting research domain.

Funding

We offer fully-funded STFC studentships (for UK nationals and UK-based students only), For students starting in academic year 2024-25 STFC studentships can be used to partially fund international students as well. School Funded Scholarships PhD positions (for EU+Swiss students), as well as a number of studentships funded through other sources. Notice that there will be no school funded scholarships for students starting in 2024-25 For more information about the STFC funded scholarships, including their terms and conditions, please see the dedicated STFC website.

We also welcome and support prospective students who are either able to self-fund their PhD studies or are planning for or have already secured a funded PhD scholarship. We can point interested candidates to suitable schemes. More information about the level of funding needed to self fund is available at the University webpage.

English Language requirement

EU or international students whose first language is not English are usually required to provide an IELTS (or equivalent) test score to demonstrate their proficiency in English. See this link for full details.

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