Master’s In Mathematical Science Overview

AIMS South Africa offers an intensive ten-month postgraduate programme leading to a Structured Master’s degree in Mathematical Sciences, accredited by the Universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, and the University of the Western Cape, and delivered in collaboration with leading international academics. The programme includes two streams—Mathematical Sciences and AI for Science—and is designed to equip talented African graduates with strong mathematical, computational, and scientific research skills.

Programme Structure

Teaching takes place in a residential, student-centred environment that emphasises understanding, interaction, and problem-solving. Courses are delivered in intensive three-week blocks, with students studying two courses at a time through daily lectures, tutorials, and computing sessions, totalling 30 contact hours per course. The curriculum spans three semesters:

These are designed to provide introductory and foundational material to the students, and are structured to achieve predefined outcomes, with little flexibility in their content. All courses are compulsory.

These are fundamentally different in that they include a wide range of topical issues and are more flexibly designed. Students are required to complete 2 out of the 3 available review courses in each time slot, a total of 11. The 3 choices in each time slot will be balanced with respect to focus on mathematics, physics and interdisciplinary topics such as computer science, mathematical biology, mathematical finance, and more. The ongoing communication skills and computing classes are compulsory.

During the three-month long research project students work on a research topic with a supervisor. Students are not expected to do original work to achieve a passing grade. However, the criterion for an outstanding research project is broadly that it could constitute the early part of a Research Master’s thesis. For example, it could be publishable in a journal, or form an outstanding introduction to the field that could be used by other students entering the area. The purpose of the research project is:

  • to give students the opportunity to work with an expert supervisor on a research project;
  • to go through the process of independently reviewing, understanding and explaining scientific or mathematical material;
  • to optionally do experiments — on a computer or otherwise — and report the results;
  • to write a scientific report.

Current/Past Courses:

All our previous courses overview and abstracts can be found here

To submit a project, please email us (links to contribute@aims.ac.za)

Muizenberg