Information for current Master's / PGCert students
Handbooks
Other resources
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Information for current MPhil/PhD and Doctorate students
Handbooks
Critical Studies Group
- Doctoral students in the Department of Psychosocial Studies run a lively Critical Studies Group which involves discussing the work of the members of the department and of research students as well as that of invited guest speakers in an informal and supportive environment.
- For further information, please email Agnieszka Piotrowska on agnieszka.rivercourt@btinternet.com
Other resources
Upgrade panel (MPhil/PhD)
Your application
- Every year, the Department will hold an upgrade panel in June at which students' applications for upgrade will be assessed, and applications will either be approved, given conditional approval (subject to some further specified work being undertaken), or not approved.
- You will normally be expected to submit an application to upgrade from MPhil to PhD at the end of your first year of registration (for full-time students) or second year of registration (for part-time students). An additional upgrade panel will also be held in January (from Jan 2011) for students for whom a June panel is too early (because of break in studies or late registration)
- Your written application will consist of:
- An 8000-10,000-word sample chapter for your thesis (which might be an element of your theoretical argument for theoretical theses, or an element of your literature review for empirical theses).
- A summary statement setting out the background, rationale, focus and questions, methodology (for empirical theses), structure and timetable for your research project (up to 3000 words).
- A copy of ethical approval from the Department's Ethics Committee (see the procedures outlined under General resources on this page) for conducting your field-work (empirical theses only).
- Students doing empirical research should have their ethics forms approved before their upgrade and submit together with other required pieces of writing, the confirmation of ethics being approved by the School's ethics committee.
- Possible outcomes of the upgrade are: Pass, Resubmit and Conditional Pass (these are cases where the committee needs to see further writing, however the student will not need to resit an examination).
Submission deadlines
- You will be required to submit three hard copies of each of these documents to the Department Office not later than three weeks before the date of the upgrade panel. We hope to confirm the date of the panel very shortly but anticipate that this will be in mid to late June, and so the deadline for submission of written documents will be towards the end of May. Exact dates will be confirmed with you very shortly.
How upgrade applications are assessed
- Your written submission will be read by two internal reviewers from the Department who are not involved in the supervision of your project.
- At the upgrade panel meeting, you will be asked to make a short 10-15 minute presentation setting out the background, aims and structure of your research, and the two internal reviewers will then ask you further questions about your presentation and written submission. Following this session, the reviewers will make a decision about your upgrade which will be passed on to you and your supervisors shortly after the panel is held.
Preparing for the next upgrade panel
- For those preparing for upgrade submission, we recommend that you start discussing with your supervisors early this term about what you should write for your sample chapter. As the term progresses you should also be thinking about how to present your summary overview of your project and where necessary apply for ethics permission from the Department Ethics committee by 15th March.
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