Our group welcomes students with a strong quantitative background who are interested in pursuing PhD studies in Statistics, Machine Learning, or Probability.

The Statistics group at UPF is part of the Economics department and the university has no mathematics/statistics department. There are two main ways to pursue a PhD with us:

1. Via the PhD program in Economics at UPF
   Apply to the Master of Research (MRes) year (Year 2) of the Economics PhD program at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. This second year is an equivalent of the 1st year of PhD Programs at North American institutions. Note that the department requires that students complete 5 years of university studies to be eligible to apply for this program.

   Upon admission, students follow a tailored course plan—agreed upon with their advisors—and complete a Master’s thesis, which typically serves as the starting point for their PhD research; see course listings.

2. Via a collaborating PhD program
   Students may also enroll in a PhD program at a collaborating institution—such as the Statistics PhD program or the Applied Mathematics PhD program at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. If arranged in advance it is possible to be supervised by a member of our group.

   These programs typically do not require coursework, and students begin working on their dissertation from day one.

Funding

All students in the PhD program in Economics at UPF are funded by the department. Student that work with as via a collaborating PhD program are typically financed by us.

Examples

Richard Coll is a student is a PhD student in Applied Mathematics at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, supervised by Gábor Lugosi (UPF) and Juanjo Rué (UPC).

Maxim Fedotov started as MSc student in our Data Science program. He is now doing the PhD Program at Universitat Pompeu Fabra supervised by Gábor Lugosi and David Rossell (both UPF).

Zhekai Pang completed MSc in Computational and Applied Economics at the University of Chicago. In 2025 he starts MRes year of the PhD program at UPF.

Application and calendar

Note: The application process is typically between November and January. Please contact us in advance so that we could guide you through this process.

All interested applicants should submit the materials specified below to the Data Science PhD selection committee at david.rossell@upf.edu, before Jan 15. Late applications may be considered in exceptional circumstances.

1. Students interested in the PhD program at UPF must also submit an application to Year 2, following the instructions for the MRes Online Application. The deadline for that application is usually Jan 15, but double-check the UPF website.
2. Students who wish to pursue a PhD at a collaborating institution outside UPF should, in a first instance, send their application to the Data Science PhD selection committee only.

Applications to the Data Science PhD selection committee must include:

• A copy of your final official undergraduate academic transcript, showing courses taken and grades obtained.
• If you have finished graduate studies or are currently undergoing a master’s degree when you submit your application, a copy of the final or provisional graduate academic transcript, showing courses taken and grades obtained.
• A motivation letter, including a concise statement on research interests.
• Two academic reference letters. If applying to the UPF program, besides uploading the letters at the UPF system they should also be emailed to david.rossell@upf.edu. Please ensure that your referees send the letters by the deadline.

The Barcelona GSE Data Science Center coordinates and promotes interdisciplinary and methodological research, training, and knowledge transfer in Data Science. The community consists of leading academics, machine-learning researchers from industry, and practitioners from the analytics sector.

Our research group has recently been recognized by major funding bodies, including:

• Huawei grant for research in networks and graphical models
• BBVA grant in Big Data
• Google Faculty Award

The Center is part of the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE), which offers seven Master’s programs, including the Master’s in Data Science coordinated by the Center.

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) is a public, international, research-intensive university that, in just over twenty-five years, has earned a place among the best universities in Europe.

• Awarded the CEI label (International Excellence Campus) by the Spanish Ministry of Education
• Ranked the 5th fastest-rising young university in the world (Times Higher Education)
• The Department of Economics is consistently ranked top-40 worldwide (QS Rankings by Subject)