This intensive programme offers an exciting opportunity to learn from world leaders in both informatics and linguistics. Drawing from our cutting-edge research, the programme’s content covers all areas of speech and language processing, from phonetics, speech synthesis and speech recognition to natural language generation and machine translation.
This flexible programme provides research or vocational training and can be either freestanding or lead to PhD study. The modular nature of the programme allows you to tailor it to your own interests.
Taught by leading researchers from Linguistics & English Language, the Centre for Speech Technology Research and the School of Informatics, this programme combines elements of linguistics, computer science, engineering and psychology.
You will develop up-to-date knowledge of a broad range of areas in speech and language processing and gain the technical expertise and hands-on skills required to carry out research and development in this challenging interdisciplinary area.
You study two semesters of taught courses, followed by a dissertation.
Most core compulsory courses have both computational and mathematical content. A few optional courses need a stronger mathematical background. Courses in the second semester can be tailored to your own interests and abilities.
Compulsory courses:
Option courses may include:
This programme aims to equip you with the technical knowledge and practical skills required to carry out research and development in the challenging interdisciplinary arena of speech and language technology.
You will learn about state-of-the-art techniques in speech synthesis, speech recognition, natural language processing, dialogue, language generation and machine translation.
You will also learn the theory behind such technologies and gain the practical experience of working with and developing real systems based on these technologies. This programme is ideal preparation for a PhD or working in industry.
This programme will provide you with the specialised skills you need to perform research or develop technology in speech and language processing. It will also serve as a solid basis for doctoral study.
Strongly interdisciplinary in nature, the Institute for Language, Cognition and Communication (ILCC) is dedicated to both basic and applied research in the computational study of language, communication, and cognition, in both humans and machines.
As technology focuses increasingly on language-based communication tools, research into the automation of language processing has become vital. ILCC offers you the broadest research scope in the UK, and a strong computational focus.
Our primary areas of research are:
Much of our research is applied to software development, in areas as diverse as social media, assisted living, gaming and education.
You may find yourself working closely with other departments of the University, particularly the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences.
Many of our researchers are involved in two cross-disciplinary research centres:
The Centre for Speech Technology Research (CSTR) is an interdisciplinary research centre linking Informatics and Linguistics. Founded in 1984, it is now one of the world's largest concentrations of researchers working in the field of language and speech processing.
CSTR is concerned with research in all areas of speech technology including speech recognition, synthesis, signal processing, acoustic phonetics, information access, multi-modal interaction and dialogue systems.
The Centre is home to state-of-the-art research facilities including specialised speech and language-orientated computer labs, a digital recording studio, perception labs and a meeting room instrumented with multiple synchronised video cameras and microphones. There is also access to high-performance computer clusters, the University storage area network, a specialist library, and many speech and language databases.
The Human Communication Research Centre (HCRC) is an interdisciplinary research centre at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow that brings together theories and methods from several formal and experimental disciplines to understand better how this happens.
We focus on spoken and written language; we also study communication in other visual, graphical and computer-based media.
You carry out your research within a research group under the guidance of a supervisor. You will be expected to attend seminars and meetings of relevant research groups and may also attend lectures that are relevant to your research topic. Periodic reviews of your progress will be conducted to assist with research planning.
A programme of transferable skills courses facilitates broader professional development in a wide range of topics, from writing and presentation skills to entrepreneurship and career strategies.
The School of Informatics holds a Silver Athena SWAN award, in recognition of our commitment to advance the representation of women in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. The School is deploying a range of strategies to help female staff and students of all stages in their careers and we seek regular feedback from our research community on our performance.
The award-winning Informatics Forum is an international research facility for computing and related areas. It houses more than 400 research staff and students, providing office, meeting and social spaces.
It also contains two robotics labs, an instrumented multimedia room, eye-tracking and motion capture systems, and a full recording studio amongst other research facilities. Its spectacular atrium plays host to many events, from industry showcases and student hackathons to major research conferences.
Nearby teaching facilities include computer and teaching labs with more than 250 machines, 24-hour access to IT facilities for students, and comprehensive support provided by dedicated computing staff.
Among our entrepreneurial initiatives is Informatics Ventures, set up to support globally ambitious software companies in Scotland and nurture a technology cluster to rival Boston, Pittsburgh, Kyoto and Silicon Valley.
While many of our graduates pursue an academic career, others find their skills are highly sought after in the technology industry. A number of our students serve internships with large UK and international software developers, while others take up positions with major social media companies.
Cognitive Science is a discipline in growing demand, and Edinburgh is a widely recognised leader in this area, with particular strengths in natural language, speech technology, robotics and learning, neural computation and philosophy of the mind.
You will gain a thorough grounding in neural computation, formal logic, computational and theoretical linguistics, cognitive psychology and natural language processing, and through a vast range of optional courses you will develop your own interests in this fascinating field.
You follow two taught semesters of lectures, tutorials, project work and written assignments, after which you will learn research methods before individual supervision for your project and dissertation.
You will choose a ‘specialist area’ within the programme, which will determine the choice of your optional courses. The specialist areas are:
Compulsory courses:
There are several optional courses to choose from, such as:
This programme will give you a deep understanding of the expanding domain of cognitive science through formal study and experiments. It is perfect preparation for a rewarding academic or professional career. The quality and reputation of the University, the School of Informatics and this programme will enhance your standing with many types of employer.
Data science is the study of the computational principles and systems for extracting knowledge from data, for maintaining data, and for ensuring its quality. Large data sets are now generated by almost every activity in science, society and commerce.
This EPSRC-sponsored programme tackles the question: how can we efficiently find patterns in these vast streams of data?
Many research areas in informatics are converging on the problem of data science. Those represented in the School include machine learning, databases, data management, optimization and cluster computing; and also the unstructured data issues generated in areas such as natural language processing and computer vision.
Our programme will allow you to specialise and perform advanced research in one of these areas, while gaining breadth and practical experience throughout data science.
A short sample of our research interests includes:
Many more topics can be found by exploring the Centre’s web pages, particularly the personal web pages of the Centre supervisors:
You will be supervised by one of our 45 world-renowned faculty. You will also benefit from interacting with a group of 35 leading industrial partners, including Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
This will ensure your research is informed by real world case studies and will provide a source of diverse internship opportunities. Moreover we believe that key research insights can be gained by working across the boundaries of conventional groupings.
The MScR is the first part of a longer 1+3 (MSc by Research + PhD) programme offered by the School through the EPSRC.
Our four-year PhD programme combines masters level coursework and project work with independent PhD-level research.
In the first year, you will undertake six masters level courses, spread throughout machine learning, databases, statistics, optimization, natural language processing, and related areas. You will also undertake a significant introductory research project. (Students with previous masters-level work in these areas may request to take three courses and a larger project, instead of six courses.)
At the end of the first year, successful students will be awarded an MSc by Research. From this basis, the subsequent three years will be spent developing and pursuing a PhD research project, under the close supervision of your primary and secondary supervisors.
You will have opportunities for three to six month internships with leading companies in your area, and to participate in our industrial engagement programme, exchanging ideas and challenges with our sponsor companies.
Throughout your studies, you will participate in our regular programmes of seminars, short talks and brainstorming sessions, and benefit from our pastoral mentoring schemes.
The School of Informatics holds a Silver Athena SWAN award, in recognition of our commitment to advance the representation of women in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. The School is deploying a range of strategies to help female staff and students of all stages in their careers and we seek regular feedback from our research community on our performance.
Our research groups contain a diverse range of compute clusters for compute and data-intensive work, including a large cluster hosted by the Edinburgh Compute and Data Facility.
More broadly, the award-winning Informatics Forum is an international research facility for computing and related areas. It houses more than 400 research staff and students, providing office, meeting and social spaces.
It also contains two robotics labs, an instrumented multimedia room, eye-tracking and motion capture systems, and a full recording studio amongst other research facilities. Its spectacular atrium plays host to many events, from industry showcases and student hackathons to major research conferences.
Nearby teaching facilities include computer and teaching labs with more than 250 machines, 24-hour access to IT facilities for students, and comprehensive support provided by dedicated computing staff.
Among our entrepreneurial initiatives is Informatics Ventures, set up to support globally ambitious software companies in Scotland and nurture a technology cluster to rival Boston, Pittsburgh, Kyoto and Silicon Valley.
We intend for our graduates to become the research leaders, both in industry and academia, whose work will lead the way in data science. This vision is shared by our industrial supporters, whose support for our internship programme indicates their strong desire to find highly qualified new employees.
You will be part of a new generation of data scientists, with the technical skills and interdisciplinary awareness to become R&D leaders in this emerging area.
Our component research groups already have excellent track-records in post-graduation destinations, including the research labs of industry-leading companies, and post-doctoral research positions in top tier universities.
IMF Business School, in collaboration with the Camilo José Cela University, launches the Master in Business Analytics and Big Data. This program aims to provide students with a global view of Big Data technologies and their use, as well as applied and practical training in Business Analytics. IMF is a member of the Association of Computer Technicians (ATI).
This Master's degree is aimed at both new graduates and experienced professionals who wish to focus on the new professions related to data analysis (Data Analyst, Data Scientists, Chief Data Officer, Data Engineer ...). The recommended access profiles are those related to ICTs, careers with a high qualitative component, and careers in business and economics.
The Master's Degree in Big Data of IMF, of an academic year of duration, is taught in online mode supported by an advanced technological platform that allows the student to access the study, regardless of geographical location or time availability.
With the IMF Student Centered methodology, the student is placed at the center of all training services and guides the institution towards academic and professional success. The student will be able to know his progress at all times, be attended when he needs to, access to all resources with total freedom and have a coaching service, headhunting and job placement.
All students who successfully complete this program will obtain a double Master's degree from the University Camilo José Cela and Master by MFI Business School. They will have at their disposal all the advantages of MFI:
