Each DPhil student has a supervisor who works on the experiment. The student joins the collaboration and plays a full role in maintaining the Sussex responsibilities on the experiment.  The DPhil consists of work carried out by the student. A high proportion of Sussex students have their thesis work published by the collaboration in academic journals and/or shown at international conferences (usually by the student themselves).

A normal pattern of DPhil research would be:

Year 1: Postgraduate courses Oct-June. Beginning research on an experiment in parallel with courses, including attending collaboration meetings. Written first year report handed in at the beginning of summer. National Particle Physics Summer School in September.

Year 2: Research on thesis topic. Spend up to a year at the experiment.

Year 3: Research on thesis topic, write up and hand in thesis. In the spring of the third year the student presents their thesis work at the Annual Institute of Physics High Energy Particle Physics Group meeting.

This is only a rough guide - details vary depending upon project, student and supervisor. The Graduate School also provides more general training courses.