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PROMYS Europe is designed to encourage mathematically ambitious secondary school students to explore the creative world of mathematics. Competitively selected pre-university students from around Europe gather at Oxford for six weeks of rigorous mathematical activity.
Non-credit
Residential
Accepts International Students
Financial Aid
Final project
PROMYS Europe is a six-week residential summer mathematics programme in Oxford for mathematically ambitious pre-university students who are selected from across Europe. PROMYS Europe is closely modelled on PROMYS at Boston University. PROMYS was founded in 1989 by Professor Glenn Stevens. Professor Stevens also founded PROMYS Europe and is the Director of both programmes.
Setting: Lectures, seminars and daily study take place in lecture rooms and class rooms within the modern, purpose-built Mathematical Institute. Students are housed within the historical walls of Wadham College, where all meals are provided along with a common room for study, socialising and the (occasional!) non-mathematical activity.
Mathematics at PROMYS Europe
(1) All first-year students attend a daily lecture but spend the bulk of their time, almost all of which is unstructured, working on their own or collaboratively on carefully crafted and very challenging Number Theory problem sets.
(2) First-year students also engage in open-ended exploratory labs under the guidance of counsellors and faculty, and write up and share their work with the PROMYS Europe community.
(3) Returning students take advanced courses and undertake research projects, mentored by professional mathematicians. They write up their results and present them at the end of the programme.
(4) There are numerous additional maths-related talks by participants and by invited visitors, some of whom are PROMYS alumni.
Guiding Principles of the Programme
(1) A belief that mathematics is a deeply human activity best experienced within a richly interacting and mutually supportive community of learners including secondary school students, undergraduate and graduate students, and research mathematicians.
(2) An emphasis on mathematical habits of mind that support independence and creativity in facing unfamiliar mathematical challenges.
(3) Students at PROMYS Europe are presented with fundamental mathematical problems for which they have to struggle long and hard to find solutions. The students are given mathematical tools to find the solutions for themselves. They are not at any point given or led to the solutions. For the six weeks of PROMYS Europe, the students are mathematicians.
(4) No student should be unable to attend PROMYS Europe due to financial need.
Funding: Funding and other resources are provided by the partnership. PROMYS Europe is also very grateful for further financial support from alumni of the University of Oxford and Wadham College.
PROMYS Europe is a six-week residential summer mathematics programme in Oxford for mathematically ambitious pre-university students who are selected from across Europe. PROMYS Europe is closely modelled on PROMYS at Boston University. PROMYS was founded in 1989 by Professor Glenn Stevens. Professor Stevens also founded PROMYS Europe and is the Director of both programmes.
Setting: Lectures, seminars and daily study take place in lecture rooms and class rooms within the modern, purpose-built Mathematical Institute. Students are housed within the historical walls of Wadham College, where all meals are provided along with a common room for study, socialising and the (occasional!) non-mathematical activity.
Mathematics at PROMYS Europe
(1) All first-year students attend a daily lecture but spend the bulk of their time, almost all of which is unstructured, working on their own or collaboratively on carefully crafted and very challenging Number Theory problem sets.
(2) First-year students also engage in open-ended exploratory labs under the guidance of counsellors and faculty, and write up and share their work with the PROMYS Europe community.
(3) Returning students take advanced courses and undertake research projects, mentored by professional mathematicians. They write up their results and present them at the end of the programme.
(4) There are numerous additional maths-related talks by participants and by invited visitors, some of whom are PROMYS alumni.
Guiding Principles of the Programme
(1) A belief that mathematics is a deeply human activity best experienced within a richly interacting and mutually supportive community of learners including secondary school students, undergraduate and graduate students, and research mathematicians.
(2) An emphasis on mathematical habits of mind that support independence and creativity in facing unfamiliar mathematical challenges.
(3) Students at PROMYS Europe are presented with fundamental mathematical problems for which they have to struggle long and hard to find solutions. The students are given mathematical tools to find the solutions for themselves. They are not at any point given or led to the solutions. For the six weeks of PROMYS Europe, the students are mathematicians.
(4) No student should be unable to attend PROMYS Europe due to financial need.
Funding: Funding and other resources are provided by the partnership. PROMYS Europe is also very grateful for further financial support from alumni of the University of Oxford and Wadham College.
PROMYS Europe is based at Wadham College, which celebrated its four hundredth anniversary in 2010.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided for PROMYS Europe participants in the college refectory or served in Wadham’s exquisite Hall.
Wadham College Refectory
Wadham College Refectory (photo courtesy of Wadham College)
Some of the students will be housed in single rooms but most will be in twin sets (two single rooms with a shared living room and bathroom). Twin sets are shared by students of the same gender. Students in single rooms have an ensuite bathroom. Rooms for PROMYS Europe participants will be in close proximity to each other and counsellors will have rooms which are nearby. All rooms have a wash basin. Bed linen, towels, and pillows are provided. There is free wireless Internet, tea, and coffee in the rooms. There are laundry facilities in college which participants may use.
Most of the lectures take place in the Andrew Wiles Building, which is the home of the Oxford Mathematics Department and is about 10-15 minutres walk from Wadham. A common room is provided at Wadham where students can work together when they are not in the department. Participants have access to a gym and other facilities.
In mathematics, maybe more than in any other science, research is an activity of the mind. The primary goal of the mathematician is to understand – to discover essential ingredients of complex systems in order to render them simple, to find order within apparent chaos, to draw analogies between different structures, and to find connections between seemingly disparate branches of mathematics and science. To make interesting new contributions in the field of mathematics requires a healthy mix of creativity, experience and hard work.
A typical day takes place in the Mathematical Institute, beginning with the Number Theory lecture which meets Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. The more experienced students will also attend lectures intended primarily for returning students. Participants spend most of the remainder of their time working independently or in small groups on problem sets distributed at the end of each class meeting. The problems will encourage students to design their own numerical experiments and to employ their own powers of observation to discover mathematical patterns, to formulate and test conjectures, and to justify their ideas by devising their own mathematical proofs. The Mathematical Institute provides the setting for students to continue to work on problem sets throughout the day. Some may work in groups; others individually. Counsellors review student problem sets daily and are always available to help guide students in the right direction.
Many first-year students also meet in small groups to work on exploration projects, guided by a counsellor. Returning students have an opportunity to work on research projects proposed by research mentors who are professional mathematicians.
There are Guest Lectures by mathematicians in academia and industry. There are also frequent seminars and minicourses given by counsellors on a wide range of mathematical topics.
PROMYS Europe is a programme for pre-university students who will be at least 16 years old by the start of the programme. Applicants may be in any year of secondary school or sixth form college including their final year or a gap year. Students attending state-funded schools, independent or private schools, home schools, and other types of schools are all eligible to apply. PROMYS Europe is open to students ordinarily resident in Europe; this includes all countries adjacent to the Mediterranean.
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Lectures, discussions, and problem sets are in English. Applicants should possess English language skills which are strong enough to enable full participation.
The application process, which usually opens in January each year, includes a challenging problem set, a teacher recommendation form, and an application form which includes short essay questions about interest in attending PROMYS Europe.
PROMYS Europe seeks to attract applicants of the hightest ability and potential, regardless of background. Decisions on the admission of students will be based solely on individual merit, assessed by the application components outlined above.
PLEASE NOTE: Students who are eligible for PROMYS Europe may apply either to PROMYS Europe or to PROMYS at Boston University. They may not apply to both for the same summer.
Deadline
Student Applications for 2023 are closed.
Applications for First Year Students will open in January 2024.
Jul 09 - Aug 19
6 weeks
Residential
The fee for students for PROMYS Europe 2023 is £1800.
The fee represents less than a quarter of the actual cost to the programme for each participant. The balance is met by the partner organisations and by donations from supporters. Applications for financial assistance are considered independently of admission decisions and only after the admissions decisions have been taken.
Financial Aid
Candidates who have been offered a place may apply for financial aid. Because admissions decisions are needs blind, you may not submit an application for financial aid before you have been notified of the outcome of your application for a place.
Successful applicants will need to ask one of their parents, or some other adult who is in a position to make a declaration about family income, to complete the financial aid form that will be sent with the offer of a place.
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