From time to time, we have calls for applications for PhD studentships and job posts. See below for more details.

PhD Studentship

The University of Kent provides a number of doctoral studentships every year, some of which will be available for those who are interested in pursuing a cyber security related PhD degree in multiple relevant disciplines. Some scholarships for a start in the

2024-2025 academic year have now been announced below. Please follow iCSS on LinkedIn or visit this website regularly to be informed about other new scholarships for the 2024-25 academic year.

4 GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistant) PhD Scholarships

The call for applications for 4 GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistant) PhD scholarships is now open and the deadline is Wednesday 24 April 2024, 23:59GMT. Out of the 4 scholarships, 3 are for home students and 1 for an overseas student. The students are expected to start in September 2024.

GTA awards include tuition fees plus a combined maintenance grant and salary equivalent to the Research Councils UK National Minimum Doctoral Stipend (£19,237 for 2023/24) for the first three years followed by fees and maintenance grant for a further six months. Scholars also receive fee-paid teacher in Higher Education training through the Associate Fellowship Scheme.

Alongside completing your PhD programme of research and development, as a Graduate Teaching Assistant you will normally be expected to work for 200 hours per annum in years 1 to 3, including teaching (maximum 96 contact hours per year) or demonstrating (maximum 130 contact hours per year) and related duties such as marking, preparation and examination. Further details of GTA terms and conditions are here.

Core Members of iCSS affiliated with the School of Computing (except Theodosios Dimitrakos) can supervise the GTA PhD students as the principal supervisor. See supervisors’ relevant research interests and suggested topics. Please contact the supervisors who may be interested in supervising you to discuss your topics and support your application.

Visit the University’s dedicated page for the scholarships for more details and how to apply.

For general queries about the GTA PhD scholarships, please contact the University of Kent’s Postgraduate Admissions team at cemsadmissions@kent.ac.uk. For queries more specific for choosing supervisors and identifying relevant research topics in cyber security, please contact iCSS Director Professor Shujun Li <S.J.Li@kent.ac.uk>.

3 EPSRC Quantum Technologies DTP (Doctoral Training Partnership) PhD Scholarships

With funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the University of Kent is offering 3 PhD studentships within quantum technologies research as part of the Government’s National Quantum Strategy.

These studentships include a doctoral stipend (equivalent to the UKRI’s National Minimum Doctoral Stipend, £19,237 – 2024/25 rate), tuition fees at the postgraduate home rate (£4,786 for 2024/25) and access to further research funding.

The deadline to submit an application is Wednesday 15 May 2024, 23:59GMT.

We welcome both home (UK) and international candidates to apply to the following projects led by iCSS Core Member Dr Carlos Perez Delgado. For successful international applicants, the full international fees will be waived.

• Cybersecurity Applications of Present and Near-term (NISQ) Quantum Computers
  • Supervisors: Dr Carlos Perez Delgado (School of Computing) and Dr Jorge Quintanilla Tizón (School of Physics & Astronomy)
  • The goal of the student will be to identify new potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities that can be exploited using current and near future quantum technologies, and to research new ways to bolster the security of systems using nascent quantum technology
• Quantum Software Engineering
  • Supervisor: Dr Carlos Perez Delgado (School of Computing)
  • The goal of the student will be to help develop tools, techniques, and methodologies for the development, operation and maintenance of quantum software.

More details about how to apply can be found on this page. For any queries about the above projects, contact Dr Carlos Perez Delgado via <C.Perez@kent.ac.uk>.

Other PhD Scholarships

The University of Kent offers a comprehensive variety of scholarships to PhD students who achieve outstanding academic merits from entry level and beyond in their undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Search for a scholarship here. We will list any selected PhD scholarships that are particularly relevant for applicants who are interested in studying a topic related to cyber security with one or more supervisors from the iCSS.

PhD Programmes and Research Areas/Topics

iCSS Core Members who can supervise PhD students as the principle supervisor are the following:

• PhD Computer Science: Budi Arief, Mark Batty, Sanjay Bhattacherjee, Virginia Franqueira, Özgür Kafalı, Rogério de Lemos, Shujun Li, Jason Nurse, Carlos Perez-Delgado, Vineet Rajani, Frank Wang
• PhD Forensic Psychology: Caoilte Ó Ciardha, Afroditi Pina, Jennifer Storey
• PhD Law: Lisa Dickson, Allison Holmes, Pamela White
• PhD Criminology: Jack Cunliffe
• PhD Electronic Engineering: Sanaul Hoque
• PhD Physics: Stuart Gibson
• PhD Sociology and PhD Social Policy: Tracee Green

Indicative research areas and topics of eligible PhD supervisors of iCSS are the following (more to be added). Please always consider contacting each supervisor directly to discuss the topics. We encourage PhD students to study interdisciplinary topics, so please consider two supervisors (the principal and a secondary) from two different disciplines.

Budi Arief

Security and privacy in IoT and Industrial IoT: proof-of-concept attacks and countermeasures, IoT honeypot, specific application domains

Human aspects of security: understanding stakeholders involved, protecting vulnerable people (e.g. victims of child sexual abuse/exploitation and survivors of domestic violence), cybercrime, socio-technical solutions

Malware and ransomware: detection, containment and recovery

Opportunities and challenges related to emerging technologies: for instance, the use of LLM and AI in security research, countering the negative impact of these technologies

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Mark Batty

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Sanjay Bhattacherjee

Post-quantum cryptology: Algorithms for finding short vectors in a lattice; theoretical bounds on the runtime, correctness and output quality; precision-handling in computations; design and security analysis of lattice-based cryptographic protocols; implementations

Algorithmic game theory: Design of new voting games, their efficiency analysis, and implementation

Blockchain: Design and analysis of blockchain protocols for different layers, their security analysis and implementations

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Jack Cunliffe

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Lisa Dickson

Visit her University of Kent web page for more information about her research interests and publications.

Virginia Franqueira

Visit her University of Kent web page for more information about her research interests and publications.

Stuart Gibson

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Tracee Green

Visit her University of Kent web page for more information about her research interests and publications.

Allison Holmes

Visit her University of Kent web page for more information about her research interests and publications.

Sanaul Hoque

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Özgür Kafalı

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Rogério de Lemos

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Jason Nurse

Visit his University of Kent web page and his personal web site for more information about his research interests and publications.

Shujun Li

Visit his dedicated web page on his personal website for indicative research areas and topics suggested for PhD applicants. More research interests and recent publications can also be found on his personal website.

Caoilte Ó Ciardha

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Carlos Perez-Delgado

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Afroditi Pina

Visit her University of Kent web page for more information about her research interests and publications.

Vineet Rajani

Verification methods like type systems, program logics and runtime monitoring for enforcement of properties related to data confidentiality, causality and fairness.

A project jointly defined by Vineet Rajani and Shujun Li is as follows:

• Algorithmic fairness: theory and practice
• Abstract: Algorithmic decision-making (for instance, using machine learning) is increasingly being used to make socially relevant decisions like university admissions, credit rating, user profiling, and even in more sensitive areas such as HR recruitment and digital policing. While most of these approaches are often designed and calibrated with accuracy and human intervention in mind, increasingly questions of fairness of such algorithmic decision making approaches are getting more and more relevant. This raises a fundamental question: when can we call a program or an automated computational model fair? Questions of this kind are difficult to answer without having a formal definition of what is meant by fairness. The goal of this project will be to understand fairness from a formal perspective and to build methods for enforcing it. There are several directions to pursue here, including connections to security, privacy and big data analytics, depending on the interest of the applicant.

Visit Vineet Rajani’s University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Jennifer Storey

Visit her University of Kent web page for more information about her research interests and publications.

Frank Wang

Visit his University of Kent web page for more information about his research interests and publications.

Pamela White

Visit her University of Kent web page for more information about her research interests and publications.

How to Apply

Unless there are a specifically arranged procedure, to apply for a PhD studentship, please follow the general steps below. Note that the research proposal is used to test your technical writing and literature review skills, and the topic may still be adjusted in the application process and refined during your PhD study. Please read the application requirements and the application procedure carefully for different scholarships you are applying for, as these may differ from the general steps explained below.

1. Read the general instructions for PhD applications, and any additional information of the PhD scholarship(s) you are interested in if you are seeking a funded PhD position.
2. Study research profiles of all eligible supervisors to identify one or several supervisors you want to work with.
3. Approach the identified potential supervisor(s) to discuss your research interests and any specific topic(s) to identity the principal supervisor(s) you want to work with and to get advice on how to prepare a research proposal (required as part of your application material, see below).
4. Prepare your application material, which should include
   • a properly formatted CV
   • the certificate(s) and transcript(s) of all university degree programme(s) studied
   • a research proposal on a selected topic including a mini literature review, a proposed methodology, a work plan and a bibliography (see the guidelines below on how to write a good research proposal)
   • proof of your English qualifications (if not obvious from other application material)
   • proof of your home student status (if you consider yourself eligible as a home student)
   • at least two reference letters (which can be provided after you submit your formal application)
   • (if you are an overseas applicant please check the specific eligibility criteria on the relevant scholarship)
5. After you have all your application material ready, visit the following web page to submit your application: https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/apply
   • If you are applying for a specific PhD scholarship, please indicate this at the beginning of the “Reasons for Study” field.

The University of Kent requires all non-native speakers of English to reach a minimum standard of proficiency in written and spoken English before beginning a postgraduate degree. For more information on English language requirements, please visit this page.

How to write a good research proposal

It is common that you will be asked to write a research proposal independently to demonstrate your literature review and writing skills and general understanding of the subjects. The topic of your research proposal can be given by the academic you are applying to, or be proposed by yourself. Many supervisors prefer you propose your own topic and write a research proposal all by yourself as a starting point.

A research proposal should normally include the following components (unless there are specific guidelines for a call explaining how a research proposal should be written):

• Title
• Your full name and contact details: Please make sure your full name match the one on your formal application form and your signature in your emails to avoid confusion. It will also be good to include your application number so your application can be uniquely identified. For your email address, please make it a clickable so the supervisor can just click it to write an email to you. If you have a personal website, a Google Scholar Citation profile, and/or a ResearchGate / LinkedIn profile, please consider including them.
• Date: This should be the date of the last update. You may also want to include the date of the first version and a version number if you have sent multiple versions to potential supervisors.
• Abstract: This is optional but can highly recommended so your potential supervisors can quickly get an idea of what your want to do.
• Introduction: This is for you to explain the background/context of the topic and your personal motivation to study it.
• Related Work: This is a section for you to review related work, to demonstrate your understanding of what have been done by other researchers on different aspects of the selected PhD topic.
• Research Methodology: This is a section for you to explain how you currently plan to study the topic technically. You are expected to include some good technical details, in the context of related work in the Related Work section.
• Work Plan: This is a section for you to explain a timeline of your proposed PhD study, fitting into a period of 3-4 years depending on your personal circumstances (e.g., if your funding lasts for 3 years, make a 3-year plan; and if you have funding for 4 years, do a 4-year plan). In no case you should plan to finish in longer than 4 years because there is an expectation that by the end of the 4th year you should have submitted your PhD thesis for examination.
• References: This is a section for you to include all key references you used in your research proposal. Each reference should be cited at least once in the proposal. Pay attention to the format of references and ensure the full, correct and consistent citation information for each reference. When possible, include a URL so each reference can be checked by a single click.

Some useful guidelines on how to write a good research proposals are listed below:

• Guidance from the Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge
• Guidance from the University of Edinburgh

Contact Us

If you have difficulties identifying research topics or supervisors, please contact the iCSS Director Professor Shujun Li via cyber-info@kent.ac.uk for advice.

If you have questions on the PhD admissions procedure, please contact CEMSadmissions@kent.ac.uk.