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). Game theory, with roots in mathematics, statistics and economics, is routinely applied to understanding and predicting human behaviour. Problems of protection of digital information against piracy are closely related to aspects of set systems. And the RSA cryptosystem, used on computers all over the world, depends on classical results of number theory. In your first year of our Integrated PhD Mathematics, you study many aspects of discrete mathematics and their potential use in practice, and provides you with options in optimisation, machine learning, data mining, and statistics. Our interdisciplinary research recognises that mathematics, including what can be very abstract mathematics, is an essential part of research in many other disciplines. Our School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science has an international reputation in many areas including semi-group theory, optimisation, probability, applied statistics, bioinformatics and mathematical biology. In your second year you move onto the PhD element of the course. We offer supervision in a wide range of mathematical areas, including both pure and applied subjects. Possible areas of research include: algebra combinatorics computational mathematics chaos theory dynamical systems differential equations numerical analysis You are also invited to contact our School to discuss other potential research areas. 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.