This is a large School within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences comprising some sixty full time academics, fifty research fellows, ninety postgraduate students and about twenty support staff. Our annual intake of undergraduates is about one hundred and eighty. For teaching purposes we are divided into three Departments; under research we operate as six Research Centres.
Undergraduate Opportunities
If you wish to study Mathematics or Physics at Queen's, you should know that there is a wide choice of options available to you from the programmes in Pure and Applied Maths, Theoretical Physics, Statistics and Operational Research, Physics and Astronomy. Broadly teaching is given in four separate departments but you are often free to choose modules from more than one, and a number of joint courses are on offer. Below are links to the outreach pages of the four departments.
Pure Mathematics
Physics and Astronomy
Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
Statistics and Operational Research
UCAS applicants to Physics and Astronomy please click here.
Please use the link below to find details of the Disability Provision that is provided by the School and to get contact details in case you feel you may need to register a disability.
Postgraduate Opportunities
PhD projects for 2007 entry will be managed this year by the Research Centres. To get information on these you should contact the relevant Director of Research or consult the Centre web pages. Information in provided below.
General Information and How to Apply
Early in the second semester of your final year MSci or BSc course you should be thinking about careers. You may wish to consider postgraduate study within the School of Maths and Physics at Queen's; in which case this web page is for you. This page will also be of interest if you are considering moving to Queen's from elsewhere to do your postgraduate study. Principally the page is here to provide information about pursuing a research degree in either mathematics or physics. For this, you will have to obtain a first class MSci honours degree. If you come from a University that does not offer an MSci, then a first class BSc may be acceptable. For students from outside the UK an equivalent classifcation of degree will be required. The headings in this web page are
The research of the School is separated into Research Centres. You should probably be particularly interested in just one or two of these for your research, and you should consult their web pages for information about projects, people to contact and so on. They are listed here with their Directors of Research.
There are four common types of studentship. The importance to you is that they are each funded in different ways, and there are different eligibilities, usually depending on your nationality or residency. They are listed below.
 DEL awards are offered by the Northern Ireland Department of Employment and Learning. The School of Mathematics and Physics is allocated about 10 DEL studentships each year. Only UK residents are eligible and the award covers fees and subsistence, last year it was £12000 per year. Some Centres will offer CAST awards which are partly funded by an industrial partner; the subsistence is typically a few thousand pounds a year greater than for a DEL award. This year's available DEL projects are are listed at the top of this page. A list of the available CAST awards will be published here in mid-February. If you are interested in any of these projects, then go to the "How to Apply" section of this page. - ESF awards are offered by the European Social Fund and all EU residents are eligible. Again, the School will have a certain number of such awards to make and these are listed at the top of this page (see DEL/ESF projects).
- Project studentships are those that have been obtained by a member of staff through personal funding by, say, a Research Council. These will normally be advertised separately; often students of any nationality are eligible - certainly all EU residents.
- University studentships (ORS, APG, SPUR ...) are funded by Queen's University and are made available, for example, to candidates who successfully apply to the Overseas Research Students (ORS) Awards Scheme. This is a nationwide competition and so only if you have an outstanding undergraduate record will you have a reasonable expectation of success. So called APG and SPUR studentships also fall into this category. If you wish to apply for a University studentship you should consult the Director of the Research Centre where you wish to work. The deadline for application is May 2nd, 2006.
DEL, ESF and other University funded studentships are administered through the Research Centres each of which will have an allocation of awards to offer. This will be made known at the end of November 2006 and advertised at the web pages of the research centres. You may also make enquiries of the four Postgraduate Advisers of Study , who are
First, you must decide which particular research areas are of most interest to you. You should contact the Director of that Research Centre, or visit their website to establish what projects are available. You should also talk to the person who will be supervising that project. You may of course apply for more than one project; but we do not approve a "scatter gun" approach to PhD applications: it demonstrates a lack of focus in you.
It is your responsibilty, under the guidance of academic staff, to fill out
Contact:
Professor Francis Keenan, Head of the School of Mathematics and Physics and William Penney Research Professor
Tel 028 9097 3686 (secretary 028 9097 3202)
e-mail mp@qub.ac.uk
Address
School of Mathematics and Physics
Queen's University Belfast
University Road
Belfast BT7 1NN |
Dr David Weir, School Manager
