PhD Studentship: Digital Trust in the Computing Continuum: Trustworthy Path Agility for Computing Continuum transactions.

Scholarship value

These PhD studentship awards include tuition fees plus a combined maintenance grant equivalent to the Research Councils UK National Minimum Doctoral Stipend (£20,2780 for 2025/26) for 3.5 years.

Deadline

The deadline for this scholarship for 2025/26 academic year is Sunday 30 November 2025 23:59 GMT

Criteria

Successful candidates will demonstrate academic excellence, outstanding research potential.

Applicants should have, or expect to obtain, a first or upper second-class honours degree in a relevant subject, and ideally a Master’s degree or equivalent.

The studentships are open to Home and Overseas (including EU) students.

The University of Kent requires all non-native speakers of English to hold a minimum standard of proficiency in written and spoken English before beginning a postgraduate degree. For more information on English language requirements, please visit this page.

Further details

The School of Computing at the University of Kent and Huawei invites applications for 2 fully-funded 3.5-year PhD scholarship for Home and Overseas students. You can apply for a PhD on the topic “Digital Trust in the Computing Continuum: Trustworthy Path Agility for Computing Continuum transactions.”

Research will contribute to the creation of new approaches and standards for an intelligent networks and agentic web with particular emphasis on policy-based authorization, delegation of entitlements, and trustworthiness assessment of data paths in intelligent networks. Prior knowledge, skills, or interest in the areas of intelligent networks, digital identity, authorization, trust management will be useful. Exposure to neural-symbolic algorithms for transforming intent into conformant security or safety policy and/or enforcing security controls is optional but beneficial. Research will also give the opportunity to students to engage in open international collaborations and contribute to the development of new standards and protocols.

The successful applicants will be associated with the Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCSS) and School of Computing's Cyber Security Research Group. iCSS represents the University of Kent as an UK government recognised Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR) and an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Education (ACE-CSE) until January 2029.

The University of Kent is committed to equality, diversity, widening participation and inclusion and we endeavour to recruit students from all walks of life. We encourage enquiries and applications from all sections of the community regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, and transgender status.

Enquiries should be directed to the Rogério de Lemos r.delemos@kent.ac.uk.

How to apply

When applying, students should follow the University of Kent’s online application process. As part of the process, students should include the following:

• make it clear the applicant wants to be considered for the Huawei PhD studentship on the application
• provide the reasons for your interest in pursuing this studentship and prepare a research proposal on “Digital Trust in the Computing Continuum” (a list of suggested topics will be provided by Kent).
• provide details/evidence of qualifications
• provide two academic references
• provide other personal information and supporting documentation.
• Complete the scholarships form to confirm you would like to be considered for this scholarship.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to make contact with r.delemos@kent.ac.uk to discuss the application before applying.

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