LMS Undergraduate Summer Schools

2019 Summer School - nominations now open; deadline 1 March 2019
2020 and 2021 Summer Schools - Call for Expressions of Interest; deadline 22 February 2019
Previous Summer Schools

The LMS Undergraduate Summer Schools are annual two-week courses, which are held every Summer at a UK university. The aim is to introduce modern mathematics to the best UK undergraduates who will enter their final year the following Autumn, and encourage them to think about an academic career in maths. The school consists of a combination of short lecture courses with problem-solving sessions and colloquium-style talks from leading mathematicians. 50 places are available to students per year.

The LMS Early Career Research Committee is responsible for the overall management and funding of the Summer Schools.

Please email any questions about the Summer Schools to lmssummerschool@lms.ac.uk

2019 Summer School - University of Leeds, 14 - 26 July 2019

Nominations for places at the next LMS Undergraduate Summer School are now open. UK institutions are invited to nominate three candidates from their institution who will commence their final year of study in autumn 2019. The final attendees are then decided by the local Organising Committee at the University of Leeds.

Criteria for Nominations

Some questions have been asked about students on 4-year programmes e.g. MMath. To clarify, departments are very welcome to nominate students on courses of any duration provided that the student is not currently in the final year i.e students nominated for the 2019 Summer School should commence their final year of study in autumn 2019.

To achieve an inclusive and cooperative working atmosphere, each School is limited to 50 participants, so the organisers will need to be highly selective. Indeed a high level of ability and enthusiasm for mathematics is essential to enjoy and benefit from the School.

Participation of women students in the Summer School is particularly important as there is a recognised lack of women continuing on to postgraduate study. To this end UK Insititutions are asked to nominate both female and male students.

Registration Fees

The Society asks that for each candidate accepted onto the School their home Department provides £250 towards the costs of meals and accommodation during the School.

How to Nominate

Nominated students should each complete a nomination form and append their academic University transcript to date and return to their LMS Representative or Head of Department, who will then return all the nominations with a cover letter to Elizabeth Fisher, Membership & Grants Manager: lmssummerschool@lms.ac.uk.

The deadline for nominations is 1 March 2019.

2020 and 2021 Summer Schools - Call for Expressions of Interest

The Call for Expressions of Interests for UK institutions wishing to host the LMS Summer School in either 2020 or 2021 is now open. A grant of up £31,000 plus income from registration fees (£250 per registered student) is available to support the costs of the Summer School that can accommodate at least 50 undergraduate students.

The London Mathematical Society has held an annual Summer School, aimed at introducing enthusiastic undergraduate students to modern mathematical research, since 2015. The Summer Schools take place for a two-week period in July and have proved very popular. The Society now seeks expressions of interest in hosting the Summer School in 2020 and 2021.

What is required of the Summer School host?

The host institution will be responsible for providing the infrastructure of the Summer School. This will include:
Catered accommodation for 50-55 undergraduates.
Accommodation (if necessary) for lecturers.
Lecture room(s) for the talks.
Providing, if necessary, PhD students to assist the School e.g in exercises.
Organising social activity and weekend excursions.

Developing, the programme of scientific content.

The host organisation would normally establish a local organising committee to manage the School, and must provide a specific local lead organiser who will be an academic in the Mathematics Department of the host institution. The local organising committee should also provide a designated contact in the institution’s finance department who can manage payments.

How does the LMS support the organisation of the School?

The Schools are funded by an LMS Grant to be made to the host institution, together with payments made by departments of successful applicants (£250 per student), which are collected by the LMS and transferred to the host in full.

The LMS will administer the entire application process, including the collation of nominations from departments and handling any queries prior to the selection of participants by the host department. The School will be advertised by the LMS in bulletins, the LMS Newsletter and through social media. Host institutions may send three eligible undergraduates to the school.

The process to select a host

All Expressions of Interests received will be considered by the LMS Early Career Research Committee. Previous hosts have been Loughborough (2015), Kent (2016), Manchester (2017) and Glasgow (2018). The 2019 School will be held in Leeds.

Departments interested in hosting the School in 2020 or 2021 are now asked to send a short (2 sides maximum) expression of interest to Elizabeth Fisher (lmssummerschool@lms.ac.uk) by 22 February 2019. Whilst the expression need not be detailed it should include the name of the person in the department who would act as local organiser. The expression of interest should be signed by the head of department.

For the School taking place in 2020, the application process would be opened to undergraduates from September/October 2019.

At this stage, interested departments are asked to provide an approximate budget, outline the facilities, catering and accommodation available and talk about their experience in hosting other similar events. More detailed work would be undertaken with potential hosts in due course. Host institutions are very welcome to make preliminary proposals for the scientific content of the Summer School.

We hope that departments will be interested working with the LMS to continue the level of success that the Summer School programme has enjoyed in years so far.