ELLIS 24/25 PhD Recruiting Round

The most recent call for applications for the ELLIS PhD Program closed on November 15, 2024. The program offers top talent from around the world a unique point of entry to cutting-edge machine learning research in Europe. Students in the program benefit from joint supervision within the ELLIS network, and spend at least six months at a partner institution in a different country or industrial research lab. In this recruitment round, the ELLIS PhD program attracted more than 3,100 interested candidates from across the globe.

Below is an overview of the timeline and instructions for admission to ELLIS.

You can find the slides of the Information Session for Shortlisted Applicants here.

Timeline

• January - February 14: Interviews: Advisors can invite shortlisted candidates for interviews. This process is not centrally coordinated by ELLIS, but self-organized by advisors and their teams. The interview period runs until February 14.
• From late February onwards - May 1: Offers (self-organized by advisors) and admission to ELLIS: The interview stage ends on February 14. Next, if a good match is found, recruiting advisors will extend offers for open positions in their labs. During this stage, PIs can also conduct additional interviews if they haven't filled their positions. The hiring process is local. Advisors inform ELLIS about accepted offers by May 1. The student is then conditionally admitted to the program.
• May 1: Admission deadline: the primary advisor should confirm via email to phd@ellis.eu if the student accepted the offer and intends to join ELLIS.
• Until September 15: Finalize admission: Find a co-advisor and submit the Letter of Intent to phd@ellis.eu (signed by the student and two advisors).

Instructions for admission

1. Conditional admission to the ELLIS PhD Program (deadline May 1)

(a) CONDITIONAL OFFER (*): Recruiting advisors make conditional offers (*) for the ELLIS PhD Program.

(b) NOTIFY ELLIS: They confirm by May 1 via email to phd@ellis.eu if the student accepted the offer and intends to join the ELLIS program. From that point onwards, the student will be 'conditionally (*) accepted' to ELLIS. To finalize admission, see (c) and (d) below.

(*) Please note: As a meta PhD program, the ELLIS PhD program does not employ students nor grant degrees. Consequently, new students must be accepted to the respective degree-granting university in addition to being accepted as ELLIS students. In other words: the acceptance to the ELLIS PhD program is a conditional accept, and can only be finalized once the student is officially accepted at the degree-granting institution (see 2). If, for whatever reason, the student is not accepted at the degree-granting institution to start their PhD, the offer to become an ELLIS PhD Student is cancelled. ELLIS does not provide funding; potentially, the offer an advisor makes is conditional upon securing funding through another call or local process. All the official paperwork goes through the institution of the main advisor and the student has to comply with all their rules and regulations.

2. Next steps: Co-advisor & finalize admission to the ELLIS PhD program (deadline September 15)

(c) FIND CO-ADVISOR: Next, the student and main advisor should decide on a co-supervisor. The co-supervisor can be any ELLIS Member, Fellow or Scholar (Industry or Academic Track) or tenured researcher not strongly associated with machine learning/AI (Interdisciplinary Track), but must (a) be based in Europe and (b) be based at an institution in a different country (Academic Track) or industrial research lab (Industry Track), where the student will conduct a research visit of min. 6 months. For the Interdisciplinary Track, the co-advisor may be based in the same university/city and, if so, must meet regularly with the student. In that case, there is no mandatory exchange period, although the student is encouraged to spend at least one month abroad during their thesis.

Please note that if one of the advisors is a CIFAR Fellow or a Canadian AI chair holder, then the other advisor should be an ELLIS Fellow/Scholar based in Europe.

(d) SUBMIT LETTER OF INTENT: If all parties agree on the co-supervision, the student and two supervisors must complete the Letter of Intent, and send it to phd@ellis.eu to finalize admisison. 

Admission form and letter for the Academic Track: Download PDF
Admission form and letter for the Industry Track: Download PDF
Admission form and letter for the Interdisciplinary Track: Download PDF

Admission requirements - Admission to the ELLIS PhD Program via the central call

The candidate – Candidates who applied via the central call and were shortlisted following the review phase are eligible to join the program if they are hired by one of the recruiting advisors*.

Advisor requirements 

• At least one of the advisors must have participated as a recruiting advisor* in the ELLIS call.
• The program is offered in different tracks. These tracks have different requirements for supervision and activity during the appointment, but otherwise offer the same benefits to the candidate.
  • Academic and Industry Track: Students in Academic Track or Industry Track are co-supervised by 1 ELLIS fellow/scholar or unit faculty and 1 ELLIS fellow/scholar/unit faculty/member. If the co-advisor who will host the student for min. 6 months is based at an academic institution in a different country, the student will join the Academic Track; if the co-advisor is based at an industrial research lab, the student will join the Industry Track.
  • Interdisciplinary Track: Students in the Interdisciplinary Track are co-supervised by at least one ELLIS fellow/scholar and a researcher whose main expertise is not machine learning/AI. If this second "interdisicplinary" advisor is not an ELLIS fellow/scholar, they should be a tenured faculty instead.
• For all three tracks, both advisors must be based in Europe**.

Degree – The degree must come from a European institution.

Activity – Each track has specific exchange or time-sharing requirements (see below). In addition, it is expected that students will publish the results of their research in top-tier venues in machine learning-driven fields. Intellectual Property (IP) that is generated during the research project will be arranged between the host and the exchange institution. The ELLIS Society does not claim any IP.

Additional requirements specific to the Academic Track

• International exchange: The PhD student must visit an ELLIS fellow/scholar/member (co-advisor) in another European** country for min. 6 months.
• Location: The two institutions must be located in different European** countries.

Additional requirements specific to the Industry Track

• Time-sharing: The candidate will spend a minimum of 50% of their time at the academic partner institution and a minimum of 6 months with the industry partner. This can be accumulative (e.g. 2 days per week) or consecutive (e.g. a block similar to an internship). In case there already is an extensive collaboration between an industry and academic partner at one site, e.g. a jointly funded and run industrial-academic lab, slightly different regulations may apply (for more information: phd-industry@ellis.eu).
• Location: The industry partner, industrial research lab, and industry advisor must all be based in Europe (regardless of HQ location), but can otherwise be in the same country/city as the academic partner.

Additional requirements specific to the Interdisciplinary Track

• Publications: during PhD thesis: papers can be published outside the Machine Learning community, for instance in top-tier venues in the co-advisor’s research field. In order to meet the publication criterion of the ELLIS PhD program, the target venue must be approved by the PhD Committee.
• Location: The co-advisor may be based in the same university or city. If that is the case, the co-advisor should meet regularly with the student.
• Time-sharing: The candidate will spend a minimum of 50% of their time with the primary advisor and a minimum of 6 months with the co-advisor if they are not in the same university/city. This can be accumulative (e.g. 2 days per week) or consecutive (e.g. a block similar to an internship).
• Exchange: If the co-advisor is based in the same university/city, then there is no mandatory exchange period but the student is encouraged to spend at least one month abroad during their thesis.

(*) Recruiting advisors are listed on apply.ellis.eu under 'Available advisors' (applicant view) or in the Advisors List (faculty view).

(**) All three Tracks require that the home and host institution or industry partner are based in Europe (or associated countries with ELLIS units, e.g. Israel). There are two exceptions: 1) if the student is in the Academic Track and the co-supervisor is an ELLIS fellow/scholar, the co-supervisor can be based outside of Europe and 2) if one of the advisors is a CIFAR Fellow or a Canadian AI chair holder, then this advisor can be based outside of Europe or in Canada, respectively. As a result, the other advisor should automatically be an ELLIS Fellow/Scholar based in Europe.

Note that in line with other European programs the "UK" (rather than its constituents nations) is considered as a single entity for the ELLIS PhD exchange requirements. As a consequence, exchanges between e.g. England <=> Scotland will not count as an international exchange in the context of the ELLIS Academic Track in future admissions.