Overview

CASA has a successful PhD programme that has graduated some 40 PhDs during the last 12 years. Most of our PhD students have a Masters degree (usually a taught course Masters typically in a subject such as Planning or Engineering or GIS) and they are this well prepared for doing research having written a short thesis already during their graduate study. We ask students to prepare a fairly detailed synopsis of the material they wish to study when they make an application, and we closely match this to the abilities and expertise of potential supervisors. We only accept students who wish to follow a PhD in the areas that CASA is expert in, which is generally the application of computers and simulation methods to urban and regional problems and the built environment.

Structure

The MPhil/PhD is essentially a period of graduate study that concludes with the submission of a thesis. Students record their progress in a log book and after one year, and the submission of written material and a oral viva and/or seminar presentation, they are encouraged to upgrade from MPhil to PhD. At this point, the student should be in a position to have the structure of the thesis in mind and the subsequent two years research is filling in the big picture that has been created during this preliminary period.

Students are encouraged to take formal courses where they need to learn new techniques such as computer programming packages and languages and/or research methods. These courses are not formally examined for there are no examinations or coursework as such for the MPhil/PhD in CASA; these additional courses are usually arranged informally with the lecturer in charge prior to the course being offered. Students are encouraged to take components of CASA's MRes course involving modelling, visualisation and spatial analysis if they need to learn this material for their thesis work.

Supervisors

Professor Michael Batty is Chairman of CASA and has supervised most of the PhD students who have graduated so far. His expertise is in urban and regional modelling and in visualisation. 

Dr. Andrew Hudson-Smith is Director of CASA and supervises students in the multimedia and visualisation area of CASA's research programme.

Professor Sir Alan Wilson is Professor of Urban and Regional Systems in CASA and is an expert in urban and regional modelling and in research methods.

Dr. James Cheshire is expert in geodemographics, GIS and contemporary mapping technologies and who also specialises in spatial analysis and R programming.

Dr. Martin Austwick is expert in urban dynamics and nonlinear systems as well as visualisation methods using contemporary computer languages such as Processing.

Both Professors Batty and Wilson are Fellows of the British Academy and the Royal Society and thus very well placed to develop research linking the social with the physical sciences

Applying

Application procedures, fees, funding and scholarships

For information, please see the faculty admissions information here.

Programme-specific information follows below.

CASA

CASA accepts applications for admission to MPhil/PhD study throughout the year. Please consult the CASA staff pages to ensure that your proposal matches our expertise. 

Before completing an application form, please consider how you will fund your studies as UK universities rarely have funding for PhDs. Our overseas students are primarily self-financed or in receipt of a scholarship from their own country. Our UK students are generally in receipt of a scholarship from a UK Research Council, such as the EPSRC or ESRC.

Opportunities

About 25 percent of our PhD students decide to make academia their career. We have had some great successes with three of our PhDs from the early 2000s making full professor within 10 years (O'Sullivan, Torrens, and Haklay). Other graduates either decide upon a career in the public service as a technical advisor or enter the commercial world with some going into GIS or engineering consulting. We have a small number of our PhD graduates who decide on a career in full time software engineering, often programming. We have a strong alumni network in CASA and those who remain in London, we often invite to remain as honorary members of our centre so that they can continue to attend our Wednesday night open seminars which are a high point of the working week both for staff and students.