Program Overview

Introduction to the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Master of Philosophy (MPhil) Program

The Department of Applied Mathematics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) offers both MPhil and PhD research programmes in the following five major areas:

• Applied Optimisation and Optimal Control
• Applied Statistics
• Data Science
• Engineering and Computational Mathematics
• Financial Mathematics

Research Areas

The Department has three main existing research groups, namely,

• Applied Optimisation and Operations Research
• Applied Statistics and Financial Mathematics
• Engineering and Computational Mathematics Meanwhile, the Department is rapidly developing two new groups, namely,
• Data Science and Machine Learning
• Mathematical Science, in particular Partial Differential Equations

Research Facilities

The Department recognises the ever-increasing demand for computational power in teaching and research. In view of this, the Department has recently deployed nine high-performance servers.

• Server amaws1: X86_64, 4 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7-4890 v2, 60 CPU cores, 120 Max. Threads, 2.8~3.4 GHz CPU Clock, 1536GB RAM, CentOS 8.2
• Server amaws2: X86_64, 4 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) E7-4890 v2, 60 CPU cores, 120 Max. Threads, 2.8~3.4 GHz CPU Clock, 1536GB RAM, CentOS 8.2
• Server amaws3: X86_64, 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) E5-2683 v4 + 2 x Tesla K80 GPU, 32 CPU cores, 64 Max. Threads, 2.1~3.0 GHz CPU Clock, 512GB RAM, Ubuntu 20.04LTS
• Server amaws4: X86_64, 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) E5-2683 v4, 32 CPU cores, 64 Max. Threads, 2.1~3.0 GHz CPU Clock, 64GB RAM, Ubuntu 20.04LTS
• Server amaws5: X86_64, 2 x AMD EPYC 7742+ 4 x NVIDIA A100 GPU, 128 CPU cores, 256 Max. Threads, 2.25~3.4 GHz CPU Clock, 1536GB RAM, Ubuntu 22.04LTS
• Server amaws6: X86_64, 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold, 2.5~3.4 GHz CPU Clock, 256GB RAM, Ubuntu 22.04LTS
• Server amaws7: X86_64, 2 x AMD EPYC, 2.5~3.5 GHz CPU Clock, 1024GB RAM, Rocky Linux 9.0
• Server amaws8: X86_64, 2 x AMD EPYC, 2.5~3.5 GHz CPU Clock, 1024GB RAM, Rocky Linux 9.0
• Server amaws9: X86_64, 2 x Intel Xeon(R) 6248 Gold + 8 * NVIDIA A40 GPU, 48 CPU cores, 96 Max. Threads, 3.0~4.0 GHz CPU Clock, 768GB RAM, Rocky Linux 9.0 Together with a 128-processor computer cluster with parallel computing capability, the Departments computer facilities can efficiently help staff and students to conduct research on big data analysis and applied mathematics.

Infrastructures to Promote Research Collaborations

The Department has the following infrastructures to promote research collaborations:

• CAS AMSS-POLYU Joint Laboratory of Applied Mathematics
• The PolyU-SDU Joint Research Center on Financial Mathematics
• Statistical Advisory Unit
• The University Research Facility in Big Data Analytics (UBDA)
• Research Centre for Quantitative Finance

Admission Requirements

The admission requirements for the PhD and MPhil programs include:

• Two Academic Referee's Reports
• Curriculum Vitae
• Personal Statement
• Research Proposal
• Transcript / Certificate

Study Information

The study information for the PhD and MPhil programs includes:

• Academic Year
• E-learning Module on Understanding China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, P.R.C.
• English Enhancement Subjects
• Enrolment and Registration
• Medium of Instruction and Thesis Presentation
• Programme Types
• Residence Requirement

Application Procedures

The application procedures for the PhD and MPhil programs include:

• Application Period
• Application Result and Offer
• Acceptance Guidelines for Submitting Supporting Documents

Fees and Support

The fees and support for the PhD and MPhil programs include:

• Application Fee
• Caution Money
• Fellowship and Scholarship
• Financial Assistance
• General Expenses
• Other Fees
• Tuition Fee and Registration Fee

Research Interests

The research interests of the Department include:

Applied Optimisation and Optimal Control

• Computational optimal control
• Financial engineering
• Mathematical programming
• Nonlinear optimisation
• Signal processing
• Statistical Optimization
• Optimization Software

Applied Statistics

• Biostatistics
• High-dimensional data analysis
• Network analysis
• Statistical learning
• Survival analysis
• Time series analysis

Data Science

• Data Science and Machine Learning
• Operations Research
• Forecasting
• Heuristics
• Inventory control
• Manufacturing network flows
• Supply chain management
• Transportation
• Operations Optimization

Engineering and Computational Mathematics

• Mathematical biology and epidemiology
• Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations
• Numerical linear algebra
• Numerical methods for differential equations
• Numerical Software

Financial Mathematics

• Financial engineering
• Investment science
• Mathematical finance
• FinTech

Programme Details

The programme details for the PhD and MPhil programs include:

• Study Mode: Full-time, Part-time
• Application Deadline: 30-Sep-2025
• Entry: Jan 2026 Entry