PhD Operational Research

University of Essex

An Integrated PhD provides a route into research study if you do not have a Masters degree, or have very little research training. It enables you to spend your first year completing a Masters-level qualification, followed by a full-time PhD studied over three to four years. We also offer a ‘standard' PhD in this subject which can be studied either full-time (three to four years) or part-time (six to seven years). Businesses, organisations, and individuals all strive to work as effectively as possible. Operational research uses advanced statistical and analytical methods to help improve the complex decision-making processes to deliver a product or service. Working in this field, you might be identifying future needs for a business, evaluating the time-life value of a customer, or carrying out computer simulations for airlines. The first year of our Integrated PhD Operational Research will appeal to you if your first degree included mathematics as its major subject, and we expect you to have prior knowledge of statistics – such as significance testing or basic statistical distributions – and operational research such as linear programming. In your second year, you move onto the PhD element of the course. You have the opportunity to explore areas where optimisation and mathematical modelling are important. These include logistics, revenue management, networks, and stochastic control - areas of great practical interest and use in the public and private sectors. Our projects often have an experimental aspect which is underpinned by forefront mathematical and computational research in these areas. Our interdisciplinary research recognises that mathematics, including what can be very abstract mathematics, is an essential part of research in many other disciplines. All Essex research students have access to our innovative and unique scheme, Proficio. Postgraduate research students are automatically enrolled on Proficio, which provides a variety of training courses and a fund of up to £2,500 per student for conference attendance and relevant external training courses.