Loughborough University is a top-ten rated university in England for research intensity (REF2014) and an outstanding 66% of the work of Loughborough’s academic staff who were eligible to be submitted to the REF was judged as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’, compared to a national average figure of 43%. In choosing Loughborough for your research, you’ll work alongside academics who are leaders in their field. You will benefit from comprehensive support and guidance from our Doctoral College, including tailored careers advice, to help you succeed in your research and future career. This project seeks to investigate scheduling and data flow problems in present-day and future networks. With current developments like the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0 and Big Data processing new types of special-purpose networks arise which must cope with huge amounts of data, especially sensor data that need to be routed, stored and processed. These networks can be heterogeneous with respect to their layout and hardware, prone to component failures and/or limited by their structural and temporal restrictions. The main challenge of the project is to model such networks and network problems and analyse them theoretically applying mathematical methods or practically using, e.g., simulations. Besides scheduling and flow problems, another aim is to develop criteria and standards for the design of special-purpose networks under above limitations. We seek candidates with a strong passion for theoretical computer science who like to do research in the following areas: (i) algorithms / protocols including randomized and approximation algorithms, (ii) computational complexity, (iii) modelling and network design, (iv) scheduling and load balancing, (v) flow and data gathering problems, (vi) discrete mathematics, especially graph theory. The successful candidate will join and work closely with the Theory group and the Network group in Loughborough which is well-connected with other universities in the UK and abroad.