Research Degrees in Politics and International Relations
(See also the general notice at the commencement of these regulations. The current edition of the relevant Student Handbook contains an elaborated version of these regulations.)
- Governance
The research degrees in Politics shall be under the supervision of the Politics Graduate Studies Committee of the Department of Politics and International Relations.
The research degrees in International Relations shall be under the supervision of the International Relations Graduate Studies Committee of the Department of Politics and International Relations.
- Attendance requirements
The DPhil programmes shall be offered on a full-time and part-time basis. Full-time students are required to meet the residence requirements set out in Part 6 of the General Regulations for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Part-time research students are required to attend for a minimum of thirty days of university-based work each year, to be arranged with the agreement of their supervisor, for the period that their names remain on the Register of Graduate Students unless individually dispensed by the relevant Graduate Studies Committee.
- Transfer to MLitt or DPhil status
Students will normally be admitted as Probationer Research Students (PRS), unless exempted due to (a) having completed an MPhil in the Department of Politics and International Relations and (b) the research topic proposed for the DPhil is a development of the research contained in the thesis.
Students will normally be expected to achieve Transfer of Status in their third or fourth term after admission (or in their sixth to eighth term after admission for part-time students).
Students should submit the Transfer of Status application via student self-service. The application shall comprise the following:
3.1. Politics PRS students submitting a monograph thesis:
a) Proposed schedule of work
b) One paragraph abstract describing the project
c) Research design of 4,000-6,000 words
d) One draft chapter of the thesis of 5,000-7,000 words
3.2. Politics PRS students submitting a three-article thesis:
a) Proposed schedule of work
b) One paragraph abstract or a short outline of the thesis, describing the whole project
c) Draft introduction of 4000-6,000 words setting out the structure and coherence of the three articles and explaining their academic relationship
d) 5,000-7,000 word document setting out the research design and a preliminary analysis for one paper
3.3. International Relations PRS students submitting a monograph thesis:
a) Short outline of the thesis topic including the title and chapter headings
b) Proposed schedule of work
c) Draft introduction of 4,000-6,000 words
d) Draft chapter of the thesis of 5,000-7,000 words
3.4. International Relations PRS students submitting a three-article thesis:
a) 5000-7000 word document setting out the research design for one paper
b) Draft introduction of 4000-6000 words setting out the structure and coherence of the three articles and explaining their academic relationship including reviewing the relevant literature
c) Timetable for completion
All Politics and International Relations students must also provide evidence of the satisfactory completion of a course of lectures, seminars, and classes, and (where relevant) a course of research methods training, as set out in the DPhil Handbook and supplemented by their supervisor.
Full details of the requirements for the Transfer of Status application can be found in the DPhil Handbook for Politics and International Relations.
The relevant Graduate Studies Committee will appoint two assessors who will read the work, interview the student and submit a recommendation to the Committee in a written report. The relevant Graduate Studies Committee will then decide whether Transfer of Status will be approved.
A student whose first application for Transfer of Status is not approved (including where the outcome is a recommendation to transfer to the MLitt) is permitted to make one further application and will be granted an extension of one term (or up to two terms for part-time students) to Probationer Research Student status if necessary. If after a second attempt, the relevant Graduate Studies Committee can neither approve transfer to the DPhil or to the MLitt, the student will be removed from the Register of Graduate Students.
- Confirmation of Status
Students will normally be expected to achieve Confirmation of Status by no later than their ninth term after admission (or in their eighteenth term after admission for part-time students). Students admitted directly to DPhil status having completed the full-time MPhil in Politics or International Relations must achieve Confirmation of Status by the end of their tenth term (fourteenth term for part-time students) as a graduate student, inclusive of the time spent on the full-time MPhil degree.
Students should submit a Confirmation of Status application via student self-service. The application will comprise the following:
4.1. DPhil Politics students:
a) Statement of the thesis title and chapter headings
b) Draft introduction
c) For monograph theses, two draft substantive chapters addressing the core research questions. (For empirical theses, this will be two draft empirical chapters.) For three-article theses, two draft articles intended to form part of the final thesis.
The combined introduction and the two chapters should not exceed 30,000 words.
4.2. DPhil International Relations students:
a) Statement of the thesis title and chapter headings
b) Draft introduction
c) Two additional chapters (or two draft articles for students following the three-article route) intended to form part of the final thesis.
The combined introduction and the two chapters should not exceed 30,000 words.
Full details of the requirements for Confirmation of Status application can be found in the DPhil Handbook for Politics and International Relations.
The relevant Graduate Studies Committee will appoint two assessors who will read the work, interview the student and submit a recommendation to the committee in a written report. The relevant Graduate Studies Committee will then decide whether Confirmation of Status will be approved.
A student whose first application for Confirmation of Status is not approved is permitted to make one further application, normally within one term (two terms for part-time students) of the original application, and will be granted an extension of one term (up to two terms for part-time students) if necessary. If after the second attempt the DPhil Committee can neither approve the application nor approve transfer to the MLitt, the student will be removed from the Register of Graduate Students.
- Theses
5.1. Monograph
Theses for the Degree of DPhil which exceed 100,000 words and theses for the Degree of MLitt which exceed 50,000 words, are liable to be rejected unless students have, with the support of their supervisor(s), been granted permission to exceed the word limit by the relevant Graduate Studies Committee. The aforementioned limits include abstract, footnotes and endnotes but not the bibliography. These figures are maxima and students are advised that many successful theses have been significantly shorter.
5.2. Three article route
A DPhil thesis may be accepted for examination if it consists of a minimum of three academic papers (including literature reviews for each paper), framed by an extended introduction (which includes a literature review setting the three articles in the wider context) and a conclusion. Such a body of work shall be deemed acceptable provided it represents a coherent body of research, addressing one overarching research question or a set of connected research questions. The same word limits as for the DPhil monograph thesis apply as to the three-article thesis.
Candidates wishing to submit a three-article thesis must be approved at the time of Transfer of Status (or within the first three terms if Transfer of Status has been waived). If a candidate subsequently wishes to revert to their original thesis format, the candidate must obtain the approval of their supervisor to be approved by the relevant Director of Graduate Studies, showing good cause for the change.
