Doctoral Study

Doctorate, or PhD, program is meant for graduates of the master study in informatics and related disciplines (e.g., natural sciences). Its first main goal is to provide students with deeper knowledge and experience especially in very new and/or perspective fields of informatics. The second main goal is to prepare students for the career in research, development and leadership (team management). PhD study ends with a PhD dissertation, awarding graduates with the PhD title and, for our graduates, giving also the possibility to obtain the RNDr. title.

Another important goal of the PhD study is to teach students to finalize their work (or parts of it) and publish the achieved results at conferences and journal. The PhD study provides students with experience and reputation that would allow them to get, after graduation, interesting positions at home or abroad. Also, students interested in research and academic career are prepared for a postdoc position, a standard next step in their professional development.

Many of the activities of the doctorate program are available and much recommended also for ambitious students of the master or even of the bachelor programs. Especially for those interested in spending some part of their study abroad and especially in the top foreign universities and research institutions (CERN, Max Planck Institutes and so on). Participation at various activities, lectures, research seminars and work in individual research laboratories provides master and bachelor students with knowledge and "strong points" when they apply for challenging positions abroad for summer or semester programs. It is therefore highly recommended to do "preparations" for doctorate study already during master or even bachelor study.

Students of the PhD study at FI have very good conditions for their work, comparable with major universities abroad. A working place in laboratories, modern technology available and possibilities to attend conferences and workshops around the world if their papers are accepted. During the years 2010 and 2011 graduate students of FI published more than 450 papers and had more than 400 participation at international conferences. Moreover, more than 20 students went for longer research and study stays abroad and quite a few are already planned to go. Average month income of graduate students of FI, due to the scholarship and other support from FI was around 15000 CZK. Currently FI has 132 PhD students. Postdocs in informatics, that is those that have finished their PhD study very successfully, can currently get up to 660 000 CZK in CR and $90 000 in North America - per year.

PhD study concentrates on developing research and development skills. However, steps are also done to prepare students for positions in industry and for developing basic knowledge and experiences in management, service and leadership positions, offering also basics in law and economics.

Nowadays, two main PhD study fields are offered at FI, Informatics and Computer Systems and Technologies.

• Study in Informatics (Fundamental Informatics) is aimed primarily on basic (investigative) research - theoretical and experimental - to acquire new knowledge and experience of fundamental nature in all areas of informatics. Typical outputs are publications in books, journals, proceedings and conference presentations as well as software systems aimed for verification and application of the results of theoretical investigations. Success in the study is evaluated mainly by quality and quantity of the publication outputs.Current concentration is on the verification of concurrent systems, design and analysis of algorithms, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, database-, search-, internet- and web- systems and engines, cryptography, image processing, bio-informatics, medicine-informatics and quantum-informatics.
  
• Study in Computer Systems and Technology is aimed primary on theoretical and experimental investigation and innovative design of computer systems and related protocols and technology. Typical outputs are quality publications describing new or innovative software and hardware systems based on original ideas. The systems themselves, widely demonstrated and usually available under open licenses are additional expected results of study in this field. Current focus, reflecting the supervisors own research work, is on distributed systems and networks, large scale distributed computing and storage system, virtualization, grid and cloud system, computer graphics and visualization, image processing, natural language processing, applied security and privacy, collaborative systems and e-learning, embedded systems and processor designs.

Length of doctoral study
4 years - standard time,
7 years - the maximum period for students who began their studies by the end of 2011,
8 years - the maximum period for students who began their studies since 2012.

Admission to doctoral study

More information and instructions about admission procedure to doctoral studies are available at page: Admission Information. The application may be submitted only electronically.