PhD students may join the Centre for Quantitative Finance, which researches contemporary issues in financial markets requiring a quantitative approach. The main role of the centre is to carry out research that fills the gap between academia and current problems faced by the industry, whether in conducting comparative studies on pricing and risk management methodologies, or designing improved financial products that can serve the wider community better, or simply being the first stop for policy makers, hedge funds or finance houses where they could commission quantitative studies on topics they do not have expertise on.