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Our Conferences and Schools

Here you will find information about schools and conferences that our students attend during their PhD and also useful information on how they funded it.

For information on conferences relevant to your field the best source of knowledge is your supervisor and your fellow PhD students. Here we have put together a list of things that have been done in the past (some of them are conferences which are part of a regular series) to give you some tips and inspiration.

The most common sources of funding (other than the limited travel budget of the School of Mathematics) are:

• Conference organizers. Even if it is not announced, ask them, they usually have some money for these things.
• Small project grants (U. of Edinburgh). There are 2 deadlines a year and it is not too difficult to get travel funding for attending international conferences. Once you get one, you can't apply for it again though!
• Research grants. If you are a member of a group with a research grant, it is possible that they have money for PhD students to travel.
• Research institutes (they tend to only fund things that they organize/sponsor but sometimes it is more open than that) ICMS, EPSRC, CALF, Institute of Physcs, Newton Institute. In some cases you need to be a member of the institute to get funded so our recommendation is to join the relevant institutes at the begining of your PhD so that you can profit from their benefits. For example, LMS and EPSRC regularly organize courses which are fully paid for EPSRC students.

All Fields

• SMSTC symposium (2008 & 2009). Since 2008 all First year students attend an SMSTC symposium in Perth fully funded by the School.

Algebra

Chris Spencer

• Birmingham, LMS/EPSRC short course on Algebraic Groups. Fully funded (fees, accomodation and subsistence) for EPSRC students except for travel cost.
• ARTIN mini-conferences (Aberdeen and Manchester). Happen often and there are funds available for travel and accommodation costs (need to apply early).
• The Algebraic Lie Theory workshops of the Isaac Newton Institute (U. of Cambridge, UK). Happen often, not always in Cambridge. Junior members of the Institute don't have to pay fees and there are funds available for travel and accommodation costs (limited to £500 per year)
• "Quiver Varieties, Donaldson-Thomas Invariants and Instantons" Luminy, France. September 2009. Accommodation and food provided by organizers (CIRM)

Analysis

George Kinnear

• Workshop on Harmonic Analysis and Geometric Measure Theory (Glasgow, 16/12/08). Funded by the organizers.
• Harmonic Analysis/PDE Workshop (Birmingham, 25/03/09). Funded by the organizers.

Numerical Analysis

Information on schools and conferences in this field can be found in the weekly email newsletter "Numerical Analysis Digest".

Jonathan Hogg

• Sparse Days at CERFACS (multiple times)
• VECPAR
• Computational and Scientific Computing Biennial Numerical Analysis Conference (used to be Dundee, now at Strathclyde)
• Birmingham Computational Linear Algebra conference

Bubacarr Bah

• SPARS'09: Signal Processing with Adaptive Sparse Structured Representations. 06 to 09 April 2009. Funded by research group's grant.
• 23rd Biennial Conference on Numerical Analysis, June 23rd - 26th 2009.
• EPSRC Symposium Capstone Conference, 30 June 2009 - 3 July 2009. Funded partly by EPSRC (conference organisers) and partly by research group's grant.

Geometry

Ciaran Meachan

• Workshop on Derived Categories in Algebra, Topology and Geometry, University of Leicester. September 17-19, 2009. Funded by ICMS.
• LMS-EPSRC Short Course: Derived Categories & Applications, City University, London. September 7-11, 2009. Funded by ICMS.
• Categorification and Geometrisation from Representation Theory, ICMS, Glasgow. April 13-18, 2009.
• Calf / TCC Geometry Day, Imperial, London. April 2, 2009. Funded by CALF.
• First Cuban Congress on Symmetries in Geometry and Physics, University of Havana, Cuba. December 15-22, 2008. Funded by a Small Project Grant.

Daniele Sepe

• Dynamical Systems meeting in Loughborough (11/2007): financed by Loughborough;
• Winter School on the Riemann-Hilbert Problem, Reading (12/2007): financed by Reading;
• Dynamical Systems meeting in Manchester (4/2008): financed by Manchester;
• Integrable Systems meeting in Glasgow (10/2008): financed by Glasgow;
• Graduate level one-day conference at Imperial (4/2009): financed by the CALF seminar group;
• Summer school on Hamiltonian and algebraic group actions, Marseille (4/2009): travel expenses financed by the Scottish Representation Theory Group, accommodation and living expenses paid for by CIRM, the hosting institution;
• Monodromy and Geometric Phases in Classical and Quantum Mechanics, Leiden, The Netherlands (6/2009): travel expenses paid for by my travel grant here, accommodation and living expenses financed by the local institution;
• Workshop on Conservative Dynamics, IMPA, Brazil (8/2009): travel grant from Small Project Grant, accommodation and living expenses paid for by the local institution.

Andrew Wilson

• [30^th Mar - 8^th Apr 2009] Recent advances in the higher dimensional minimal model program, POSTECH, Pohang, South Korea - funded: School of & POSTECH (local accomodation)
  
• [11^th -14^th Nov 2008] Analytic and algebraic aspects of the MMP and higher dimensional classification,  Institut Fourier, Grenoble - funded: Institut Fourier, Grenoble
• [12^th - 18^th Oct 2008] Higher Dimensional Algebraic Geometry, Workshop organized by C. Hacon and S. Kovàcs, Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (Photos). Funded: Oberwolfach & School of Mathematics 
• [13^th - 18^th Mar 2008] Explicit methods in three-folds, Weekend workshop, Warwick University - funded: EPSRC (via Warwick)
  
• [14^th - 25^th Jan 2008] del Pezzo surfaces and related problems, POSTECH, Pohang, South Korea - funded: POSTECH
  
• [12^th - 20^th Dec 2007] Higher dimensional minimal model program, Conference, Warwick University - funded: EPSRC (via Warwick)
• [1^st - 6^th Nov 2007] Introduction to the recent breakthroughs in the higher dimensional minimal model program, Weekend workshop, Warwick University - funded: EPSRC (via Warwick)
• [18^th Jun - 6^th Jul 2007] Geometry of complex projective varieties and the minimal model program, Summer school in Mathematics, Institut Fourier, Grenoble - funded: Institut Fourier, Grenoble
• [9^th - 10^th Jan 2005] Prospects in Mathematics, University of Durham - funded: EPSRC (via Durham)
  

Topology

Spiros Adams-Florou

• 3 months in Muenster, Germany (visiting student), funded by Prof. Lueck's Muenster Topology Group.
• Geometry and Topology conference again in Muenster and again funded by Prof. Lueck's Muenster Topology Group.
• Knot theory conference in Heidelberg, Germany with 300 Euro funding from the conference organisers

Julia Collins

• Visit to University of Indiana to work with a professor (August 09). Flights and subsistence funded by the Laura Wisewell Travel Fund.
• Categorification and Geometrisation from Representation Theory (Glasgow, April 09). Travel funded by ICMS.
• The Mathematics of Knots: Theory and Application (Heidelberg, Dec 09). Fully funded by Heidelberg University with a bonus payment because I gave a talk there.
• Two months spent working on a project at the University of Eindhoven, NL, Autumn 08. Fully funded by the University of Eindhoven.
• Surgery and Manifold Theory (Münster, June 08). Fully funded by Münster Universität.
• Knot Theory: Fifty Years Since Fox and Milnor (Brandeis, US, June 08). $500 provided by the conference.
• British Topology Meeting (Sheffield, Sept 07). Partially funded by the conference. This conference is held annually at various locations.
• Program on Braids and Prima Summer School (National University of Singapore, June 07). Accommodation paid for by the summer school, flights paid for by a British Association Travel Grant (£100) and a Small Project Grant (£500).
• British Mathematical Colloquium (Swansea, April 07). Partially funded by conference (I think!). Held annually at various locations.

Mathematical Astronomy - Dynamical Systems

Rosemary Apple

• KITP in Santa Barbara, US. The organizers waived the conference fee and provided accomodation upon specific request. This conference was organize by the MODEST group. You can find information about upcoming modest meetings and relevant conferences and schools in their website.
• Workshop for scientific computing on GPUs at Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, US. The organizers waived the conference fee and provided accomodation upon specific request.
• International Astronomical Union Conference in Capri, Italy. The organizers waived the conference fee and contributed to travel expenses upon specific request.

David Urminsky

• Cambridge N-body summer school: partial funding Scholarship from Cambridge (400GBP)
• IAUS symposium 246: in Capri, Italy. Partial funding from the school. (400 Euros scholarship from IAU).
• Aberdeen Conference on Chaotic dynamical Systems - Partial funding from the conference (200GBP)

Mathematical Physics

Elena Méndez-Escobar

• RTN String Theory Winter School 2008, Geneva, Switzerland. Funded by RTN research grant.
• Spring School on String Theory and related topics (2008, 2009). Trieste, Italy
• NBMPS (North British Mathematical Physics Seminars). Happen 3 times a year in Edinburgh, York and Durham. They cover travel expenses for members of the group.
• LMS graduate student meeting. King's College London, UK.
• Beyond Part III. April 2009. University of Cambridge, UK. Partially funded by conference organizers.
• 2 weeks in University of Valencia (October 2008). Scientific visit. Funded by RTN research grant.
• 7th Simons Worshop in Mathematics and Physics (4 weeks, August 2009). Stony Brook University, New YOrk, US. Funded by the conference.
• Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (2 months, October-November 2009). Tokyo, Japan. Funded by the Japanese Government (JSPS).

Number Theory

Graeme Taylor

• "Topics in Algebra, Geometry and Number Theory" Utrecht, NL August 13-24 2007. 2 week summer school. Fully funded by Utrecht except travel cost. They run several summer schools each year .
• "ECC2007 11th Workshop on Elliptic Curve Cryptography" Dublin, IE September 5-7 2007. Annual conference.
• "SAGE Days 6: Cryptology, Number theory, and Arithmetic Geometry" Bristol, UK November 10/11 2007. Happens regularly .
• "Eighth Algorithmic Number Theory Symposium ANTS-VIII" Banff, Canada. May 2008. Organised by University of Calgary. This conference is biannual. Travel was funded for students.
• "12th Workshop on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC 2008)" Utrecht, NL September 22-24 2008. Annual conference.
• "MAGIC Postgraduate Student Conference 2009" Manchester, UK. January 12-14 2009. Subsidised accommodation and partial contribution towards travel costs.
• "Beyond Part III" Cambridge, UK April 16-18 2009. There are plans to make it into an annual conference.
• (Upcoming) "Workshop on Discovery and Experimentation in Number Theory" Toronto, Canada. September 22-26 2009. Fields Institute contributing $500CAD towards travel costs.