The Academy for PhD Training in Statistics is a collaboration between major UK statistics research groups to organise courses for first-year PhD students in statistics and applied probability nationally. For its first five years of operation APTS has been supported by EPSRC, and this support included funds to cover most of the cost of participation by EPSRC-funded students. Further support for an additional five years has recently been announced (this will no longer cover accommodation and subsistence costs for EPSRC-funded students, although it includes a contribution towards travel costs for these students).

The intention of APTS is to provide courses which will be attractive and relevant to the research preparation and background education of all statistics and probability PhD students in the UK. APTS is open also to students from institutions outside the UK.

How it works (in brief)

APTS organises four residential weeks of training each year, with two intensive course modules per APTS week. Each APTS week requires preparatory work by students; and APTS students are typically required by their home department to complete short assessment tasks afterwards.

Registration for APTS is in two stages:

• departments with PhD programmes register as APTS "sending institutions";
• sending institutions register their PhD students with APTS in September/October each year.

Departments can, in addition, commit to a level of participation which qualifies for APTS Member Institution or APTS Underwriting Institution status. (All Underwriting Institutions are Member Institutions; and all Member Institutions are automatically registered as "sending institutions".)

All of this is described fully in the APTS Constitution document, in the Module Specifications document, and in the more detailed web pages linked on the left.