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Following the MPhil year, the PhD requires an additional 2-3 years of intensive research.
The core of a PhD thesis in Management Science/Operations will typically consist of
several academic papers, each of which is of a standard sufficient for a publication in a
respected international journal. To encourage inter-disciplinary work we allow some of
these papers to be co-authored with faculty in Cambridge or elsewhere, or with PhD
students from other disciplines. Students have a dedicated thesis supervisor, typically a
member of the Management Science faculty, and a second supervisor to draw on the
expertise of the wider Business School faculty. Students and faculty report regularly on
research progress and discuss difficulties in the weekly Management Science seminar,
which is also a forum for guest speakers relevant to the students' research activities.
A typical example is a recent thesis on electricity markets design, which combined two
single-authored papers on the mathematical and computational analysis of a generic
mathematical model, which can be applied in this context, with a co-authored
computational comparison of two market designs based on a model of the European
electricity network. The latter work was carried out jointly with a post-doc in the
Department of Applied Economics, who provided the necessary economics and policy
expertise.
A further example is a PhD on real options analysis, which combines theoretical and
computational analysis of suitable options valuation models with applications in energy
generation and the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. Whilst the theoretical and
computational analysis is individual work, the application papers are co-authored, one
with a PhD student in Technology Policy with expertise in energy generation, the other
with the student's supervisor.
Students on the MPhil in Management Science & Operations typically focus on one of
the above levels in their dissertation work. We encourage MPhil students to work in
teams, with different team members focusing on the different levels for the same problem
or problem area.
Fundamental work
On the fundamental level, we encourage research in optimisation theory and dynamical
systems. Students who are primarily interested in fundamental work on probability might
wish to explore the MPhil in Statistical Science.
Modelling work
Work on the modelling level includes hierarchical optimisation and game theory, integer
programming for scheduling, stochastic dynamic optimisation, real options, revenue
management, machine learning and data mining, systems dynamics, and demand
forecasting. We encourage students to gain a wide knowledge of different types of
models and be able to explore a variety of modelling approaches in their research work.
Applications
Most of our modelling work goes hand-in-hand with and is driven by one of our core
application areas (some on-going or recent work in brackets):