The University of Exeter's College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences is inviting applications for a fully-funded PhD studentship to commence in January 2022 or as soon as possible thereafter. The studentship will cover Home tuition fees plus an annual tax-free stipend of at least £15,609 for 3.5 years full-time, or pro rata for part-time study. This College studentship is open to UK and Irish nationals, who if successful in their application will receive a full studentship including payment of university tuition fees at the home fees rate. Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) for engineering models is a rapidly growing field with numerous exciting applications. However, the current best-performing algorithms for quantifying the uncertainty through Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) rely on computing a gradient that is typically not readily available for complex engineering models.

We are on the lookout for the best and brightest students interested in the intersection of music/audio technology and AI. For this round of applications we are offering a number of scholarships to applicants who are ordinarily resident in the UK (i.e. have lived and studied/worked in the UK at least the last three years – this includes EU nationals) and a smaller number of scholarships to international students. We have a large number of 4-year PhD studentships available for home, EU and international students starting in September 2020 which will cover the cost of tuition fees and will provide an annual tax-free stipend (£17,009 in 2019/20). The CDT will also provide funding for conference travel, equipment, and for attending other CDT-related events. Please see the international PhD scholarships page for full details of Queen Mary's international funding partners, including other schemes not listed here.

We study the effect of the introduction of university tuition fees on the enrollment behavior of students in Germany. For this, an appropriate Lasso-technique is crucial in order to identify the magnitude and significance of the effect due to potentially many relevant controlling factors and only a short time frame where fees existed. We show that a post-double selection strategy combined with stability selection determines a significant negative impact of fees on student enrollment and identifies relevant variables. This is in contrast to previous empirical studies and a plain linear panel regression which cannot detect any effect of tuition fees in this case. In our study, we explicitly deal with data challenges in the response variable in a transparent way and provide respective robust results. Moreover, we control for spatial cross-effects capturing the heterogeneity in the introduction scheme of fees across federal states ("Bundesl\"ander"), which can set their own educational policy. We also confirm the validity of our Lasso approach in a comprehensive simulation study.

A funded PhD position is available at the Computer Science Department, School of Science, Loughborough University, UK, on the topic of the evolution of lifelong learning in neural networks. The aim is to develop new neuroevolution algorithms for lifelong learning. The objectives are to devise machine learning systems that autonomously adapt to changing conditions such as variation of the data distribution, variation of the problem domain or parameters, with minimal human intervention. The approach will use neuroevolution, neuromodulation, and other methodologies to continuously discover and update learning strategies, implement selective plasticity, and achieve continual learning. Application areas include a variety of automation and machine learning problems, e.g.

We are seeking excellent candidates with interests in Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and deep learning who want to study at a top 10 UK research-led University whilst working with industrial partners. This project is part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Embedded Intelligence. In choosing this project you'll work alongside academics that are leaders in their field and benefit from a four-year studentship award that includes an enhanced EPSRC tax-free annual stipend of at least £17,553 per annum and UK/EU tuition fees. Furthermore, you will have access to a personal training budget of £10,000, which is in addition to a research budget and support from academic members of staff and industrial partners. Loughborough University aims to ensure equality for men and women.

Earlier this year, the UK parliament rushed through a bill that could see an increase of university student tuition fees to £9250. Controversially, the new legislation also allows universities to increase these fees year on year in line with inflation, if they choose to. At the same time, the 2016-17 academic year saw the number of students dropping out of their degrees increase for the second year running, now up to 6.2% from 6% last year. For any business, the prospect of retaining 6% of annual revenue from churned customers would be a no-brainer. When that 6% could translate into £6 million in tuition fees for places that can't be resold, the stakes are high.

A university without any teachers has opened in California this month. It's called 42 - the name taken from the answer to the meaning of life, from the science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The US college, a branch of an institution in France with the same name, will train about a thousand students a year in coding and software development by getting them to help each other with projects, then mark one another's work. This might seem like the blind leading the blind - and it's hard to imagine parents at an open day being impressed by a university offering zero contact hours. But since 42 started in Paris in 2013, applications have been hugely oversubscribed. Recent graduates are now working at companies including IBM, Amazon, and Tesla, as well as starting their own firms.

David Nordfors is the co-chair and co-founder of the i4j Innovation for Jobs Summit together with Vint Cerf. There is a common misunderstanding about the coming automated economy that may destroy us all. Most people in business and finance (and most people, frankly) think that the new economy (of artificial intelligence and autonomous machines) is like the old economy: satisfying customers' needs for products and services. The real heart of the new economy will be about helping people need each other more. To build a new economy (and a decent, functional society), innovation must help us need each other more and in better ways… to bind us to each other.