We welcome applications from students wishing to undertake a PhD in the Astrophysics Research Centre starting in September/October 2020.

We expect to have a number of fully funded PhD studentships. These funded positions are only available for students fulfilling UK national requirements (either UK nationals, or have been in the UK for the last 3 years for a purpose which is not full-time education). Self-funding students or students with their own international funding grants are also very welcome to apply:

• Information and application forms to study for a PhD at Queen's University are available at this website.
• It is essential that you read and follow the application instructions to fill in the University form for applications to ARC.
• For PhDs, we will normally consider applicants holding, or expecting to obtain in 2020, a UK MSci (or equivalent) degree in physics, astronomy or a related discipline with 2.1 or higher classification (or international equivalent).
• If you are unsure about any part of the process, contact the prospective supervisors of the project areas you are applying for, or s.sim@qub.ac.uk for advice on the application procedure.

Please note that Queen's University will not accept applications that do not follow the required procedures.

Contact details for all staff are available here.

We recommend browsing the staff research pages to get a general overview of our work.

The following links provide information on a sample of our projects on offer:

• Multi-Wavelength Observations of Solar Flares (Supervisor: Dr. Ryan Milligan)
• Faint signals from bright sources: identifying high-frequency waves in the Sun (Supervisor: Dr. David Jess)
• From the Centaurs to the Inner Oort Cloud: Exploring the Kuiper belt Connection (Supervisor: Dr. Meg Schwamb)
• Radiative transfer in supernovae (theory) (Supervisor: Dr. Stuart Sim)
• Investigating exoplanet systems with the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect (Supervisor: Dr. Ernst de Mooij)
• Terra Hunting - extreme precision mass-measurements of Earth-like worlds (Supervisor: Dr. Chris Watson)
• Relativistic Dirac R-matrix photoionisation calculations through to their implementation with stellar opacity codes (Supervisor: Dr. Connor Ballance)

Note that more projects may be being proposed over the coming few weeks: please check back often!

International self-funded students should consult these pages and links for tuition fees. If you are a non-EU student, with your own funding we require an annual fee of (currently) £21,300. This annual fee applies to both PhD and MPhil programs. Note that you will also need living expenses of around £15,000 per year.

Please check our International Scholarships page for opportunities.

• Applications for post-graduate studies must be made via the QUB portal.
• All applications received by Friday February 14th 2020 will receive full consideration for astrophysics PhD positions (interviews will commence shortly after that date). However, applications received later will continue to be considered where suitable projects are still available.
• You can apply for any number of the research themes advertised for 2020 within one application. Follow these guidelines:
  • The "Title" of the proposed research area should be "Astrophysics"
  • You have two possibilities to add information on what research project themes you wish to apply for. These are
    • the "Additional Information" box (500 character limit)
    • the one-page "Personal Statement" which can be found either on the portal web-page ¹⁾.
• There are funding options listed on the application procedure:
  • Self Funding: This would mean you are willing to pay everything yourself and is not advisable unless you have very significant personal funds you are willing to use during a 3-year PhD.
  • Apply for funding via the portal: In this case you will be applying for funding from the Northern Ireland DfE. This is an option if you are from the UK (in which case the studentships pay full fees and living expenses), or if you are from the EU (in which case, our studentships have fees paid only, but no living expenses).
  • Note that the particular project Faint signals from bright sources: identifying high-frequency waves in the Sun is an exception in having funding for four years for which all EU applicants are eligible for both fees and living expenses.

If you need further advice, either email the prospective supervisors or for general queries, email s.sim@qub.ac.uk.