CERN-STFC Non-Member State Doctoral Student Programme

Imagine getting involved in cutting-edge research and technology before you have left university. Imagine working in an international environment acquiring skills to bring back to your country.

As part of the Science and Technology Facilities Councils Africa-UK Physics Partnership Programme funded by the UK Governments International Science Partnerships Fund CERN is launching a capacity-building program. This program aims to support advanced studies in Physics Engineering and Computer Science for nationals of certain CERN Non-Member States (NMS).

The objective of the scheme is to provide opportunities through the award of studentships to encourage young and high-calibre PhD students in particle physics as well as in applied physics information technology/computing and engineering from the NMS to allow them to obtain world-class exposure supervision and training primarily within the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments without excluding other scientific and technological activities at CERN.

The studentships offer the chance to students from one of six African countries to work towards a PhD thesis at their home institution in Africa while spending one year at CERN at the forefront of science over the full period of their PhD studies.

This is an invitation to PhD students to further their knowledge in a truly unique organization to get involved in world-famous experiments and accelerator projects of unprecedented scale and scope and to bring back to their home countries and regions new skills and a varied expertise.

You will have the opportunity to work in a diversity of fields at the cutting edge of science and technology: particle physics applied physics engineering information technology/computer science instrumentation materials science are but a few of the examples of the many domains in which successful applicants will learn and contribute their knowledge.

Qualifications :

In order to be eligible to apply for a place on the programme you will need to meet the following requirements:

• You must be a national of South Africa Kenya Tanzania Ghana Rwanda or Uganda who is registered on a PhD programme in one of the subjects mentioned above in a higher education institution in one of these six countries.
• Students must be enrolled in a university and have completed at least one year of their PhD studies thus ensuring that the necessary basis through coursework is acquired together with an overall proof of commitment and the case the thesis work would be related to an experiment the university needs to be affiliated with the corresponding experiment collaboration.
• The work envisaged at CERN is all or part of the thesis work required to obtain the PhD degree. While the daily co-supervisor during the stay at CERN could be a CERN Staff Member the full PhD supervision and the award of the degree remains the responsibility of the home university. Academic arrangements will be agreed between the university thesis supervisor and the CERN supervisor thus setting up a partnership between the home university and CERN covering the full duration of the PhD studies of the student.
• Good knowledge of English and/or French.

!Important note! Nationals of a CERN Member or Associate Member State are eligible for the CERN Doctoral Student Programme and will not be considered for this capacity-building initiative.