The German Research Foundation DFG supports a new Research Training Group on “Stochastic Analysis in Interaction” based in Berlin and Oxford with 3.9 Mio Euro for 4.5 years. It will be part of BMS and MATH+. In April 2020, 13 PhD students will start their research in Berlin, about the same number of students in Oxford. Chairs are Prof. Peter Bank (TU Berlin) and Prof. Terry Lyons (Oxford University).

Today, methods of stochastic analysis are an indispensable part of many applications. Their differential equations are used in many ways in physics, for example to model the microstructure of dynamically changing interfaces. In population genetics, stochastic interaction models are essential for the statistical analysis of evolutionary processes. Risks in the financial world are measured today with the most modern knowledge of stochastic analysis and secured as best as possible; and also in the data sciences, concepts of stochastic analysis have proven to be extremely useful in recent years, for example for predicting critical complications in patients in intensive care units. “This variety of applications is made possible by the mathematically rigorous foundation on which this theory is based and whose further development presents equally exciting challenges which, as basic research, are also a topic of the approved Research Training Group”, says Prof. Dr. Peter Bank, Head of the Department of Mathematical Finance.

The wide range of applications and the mathematical depth of the envisioned research topics are only made possible by the cooperation between the internationally renowned research groups from Berlin and Oxford. During their half-yearly research stays in Berlin or Oxford, the doctoral students will come into intensive contact with the complementary methods, perspectives and concepts of the partner group.

Thus, the international Research Training Group (RTG) fits in excellently with the academic partnership between the University of Oxford and the universities of Berlin in conjunction with the Charité, which began last year. In Berlin, the RTG will be anchored in the Berlin Mathematical School BMS, the internationally recognized institution for doctoral studies in mathematics. This makes it part of the Center of Excellence MATH+. On Oxford’s side, the institutes of mathematics and statistics are involved: in cooperation with the Imperial College London, they operate a Center for Doctoral Studies (CDT) on “Mathematics of Random Systems”, which was recently founded by the British Research Promotion and fits perfectly with the new Research Training Group.

Next year, 13 doctoral students will begin their research on the Berlin side. They and a comparable number of doctoral candidates in Oxford will be supervised by 25 scientists from Berlin and Oxford: five at the HU Berlin, eight at the TU Berlin and the Weierstrass Institute WIAS, and twelve at the University of Oxford.

Translated from the TU Berlin Press Release.