Top PhD Programs in London United Kingdom 2019

A pluralistic programme offering existential, phenomenological, cognitive-behavioral, and psychodynamic approaches, with a strong focus on employability.

*For more information please refer to the fees and financial support sections below.

The DPsych programme aims to develop highly skilled, reflexive practitioner psychologists and researchers who will make a valuable contribution to the profession, both inside and outside the consulting room.... [-]

Do you seek to make a unique contribution to our understanding of organizations and communities, and of the dynamics of stability and change? Are you an experienced and reflective practitioner interested in developing yourself and your practice, through the discipline of 'Action Inquiry'? Are you interested in doing your research in close collaboration with the support of a community of like-minded practitioners?

If yes, then the Ashridge Doctorate in Organisational Change will be of interest to you. Through a rigorous process of inquiry, this qualification will develop your practice to a deeper level. As organizations face the need to respond to ever more diverse and challenging issues, practitioners must develop new ways of working with complex and uncertain situations in pursuit of purposes and outcomes that matter to them.... [-]

Duration: 3 years full time or 6 years part-time

Entry Requirements: Admission and Thesis Requirements. A good Masters degree in Economics is usually required for registration for the MPhil and PhD research degrees. Students are normally registered for the MPhil degree in the first instance. Once approval of the Student's Supervisory Committee has been received, the student's registration is upgraded to PhD status (and backdated to the commencement of the MPhil registration), usually at the end of the first year of study. The normal period of study for a PhD degree is not less than three years of full-time study. Students if full-time employment or with other significant commitments may register for part-time study, for which the minimum registration period is double that of full-time study. Candidates are expected to present a thesis of no more than 55,000 words for the MPhil, while for the PhD the maximum length is 100,000 words.... [-]

Mode of Attendance: Full Time or Part Time

The SOAS Religions and Philosophies Department offers a vibrant, stimulating, and interdisciplinary research environment. We provide individual research supervision in a wide variety of religious traditions and comparative and interdisciplinary topics. Supervisors are experts in their fields and thoroughly familiar with the religions, cultures, languages, and geographical areas they specialize in.

In addition to individual supervision the Department offers research training at various levels: an obligatory research writing workshop which prepares year 1 MPhil students for their upgrade to the PhD level; a weekly seminar for PhD students in years 2 and 3 to discuss work in progress and receive feedback before submitting their thesis; a departmental research seminar in which both staff and students present papers on their research projects and discuss them in an interdisciplinary setting. Students also have the opportunity to attend seminars, lectures, and conferences offered by the various specialist Centres relating to their particular fields. These centers run regular evening lecture series, workshops, and conferences which host visiting speakers from other universities in Britain, Europe, and globally.... [-]

Mode of Attendance: Full Time or Part Time

The Department of Politics and International Studies accepts students for research work leading to a PhD. The primary aim of the PhD programme is to train students to design, research and write a successful doctoral thesis. Those who have completed the doctorate will be familiar with the conceptual and methodological aspects of political research and qualified as experts in their field.

To be considered for entry into the PhD programme, applicants must possess a well-advanced degree in Politics equivalent in level and content to the Department's MSc, although applications from individuals with related degrees in cognate disciplines will also be considered. Guidelines for Research Proposals can be found here.... [-]

Mode of Attendance: Full Time or Part Time

All students register in year 1 of the programme as MPhil students. The upgrade from MPhil to PhD takes place at the end of the first academic session for full-time students (or at the end of the second academic session for part-time students).

All new MPhil/PhD students are provided with a supervisory committee of three members, comprising a main or primary supervisor, and a second and third supervisor. The split in time commitment across the supervisory committee is 60:25:15. In the first year, students are expected to meet their main supervisor on a bi-weekly basis for a period of at least one hour.... [-]

Mode of Attendance: Full Time or Part Time

Staff and students of the Department of Music pursue research on a wide range of subjects, mainly but not exclusively focused on the music of Asia and Africa. Staff have special interests in the music of China and Central Asia (Harris), Korea (Howard), Japan, Indonesia and Thailand (Gray), India and Nepal (Widdess), the Islamic Middle East (Wright), the Jewish world (Wood), West Africa and Cuba (Durán) and South and East Africa (Impey). But research is not limited to these areas: projects have been undertaken on American jazz, and on the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and Eastern European music, for example. Staff often have research interests in issues that cross regional boundaries; see the Department Staff page for a summary of their interests, and select the name of a lecturer for further details of their individual research specialisms and activities.... [-]

Media and Film Studies at SOAS has an expanding programme of doctoral research with some thirty research students currently enrolled. Our research students work on an exceptionally wide range of topics, both theoretical and empirical, with about half coming from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and half from Europe and North America.

The Centre puts emphasis on the acquisition of critical theoretical skills and in-depth regional, linguistic and cultural knowledge of media and film forms and practices.

The PhD in Media and Film Studies is a research degree, involving original research on some aspect of contemporary theoretical and global issues in media and film. Our approach to media and film studies involves a developed critique of Eurocentrism. Our specialty is the analysis of the film and media industries, their contents and their audiences in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and their diasporas, an approach equally well-suited to research on Latin American, East European and mainstream ‘Western' media.... [-]

Start of programme: September

Mode of Attendance: Full-time or Part-time

The MPhil/PhD in Linguistics is a research training programme which combines foundational and advanced courses in the core areas of linguistics, training on research methods and research work leading to a dissertation. The Department is strongly research-oriented, and through a combination of courses, advanced seminars, and individual supervision, aims to provide the intellectual discipline, knowledge, and skills required of a well-rounded researcher.

Supervision is offered in theoretical, descriptive and comparative linguistics, translation and language pedagogy. Depending on the research topic, it may also be possible to arrange joint supervision with specialists in other departments.... [-]

Mode of Attendance: Full Time or Part Time

The Department is able to supervise MPhil and PhD degrees by research and thesis in a wide range of cultural and linguistic subjects. Intending research students should not feel constrained to limit their choice of topics to those indicated against the names of current staff members (postgraduate students have recently been working on a range of topics that include Japanese cinema, Kabuki texts, modern Japanese linguistics and literature, Meiji historical texts, Korean linguistics, and literature, Korean colonial and eighteenth-century history). Research undertaken at MPhil and PhD level is based on literary, documentary, and archive material available at SOAS and also gathered during fieldwork in Japan and Korea.... [-]

Duration:3 years full time or 6 years part-time

Students may follow the PhD pathway in International Development by being based at either SOAS, LSHTM or IoE. All PhD students on the International Development pathway will attend an advanced research training seminar run by LIDC. The series will provide students in the ESRC Doctoral Training Centre's International Development Pathway with a broad understanding of interdisciplinary approaches to development, and a detailed understanding of selected areas of interest.

All MPhil/PhD in International Development research students will participate in the compulsory coursework and attend research student seminars in the college and department where they are registered for the MPhil/PhD. At SOAS the Economics and Development Studies departments hold seminar series and students will be expected to involve themselves in the work of the relevant research clusters.... [-]

Mode of Attendance: Full Time or Part Time

The SOAS History Department is one of the world’s major centers offering supervision for research degrees in African and Asian history. It attracts students and scholarly visitors from all parts of the world. The top ratings given to the Department in the official national research assessments of 1996, 2001 and 2008 took into account the excellence of its research training, as well as the staff publication record. The Department provides opportunities for well-qualified applicants to join large groups of students and staff working in or around their specialist fields of history. The unique combination of individual supervision, taught courses and seminars ensure that the large majority of students complete their degrees within four years.... [-]

Mode of Attendance: Full Time or Part Time

The CISD welcomes applications from prospective MPhil/PhD students wishing to undertake multi-disciplinary research in areas of global studies that relate to the research interests of Centre members and the Centre’s research programmes. The specific focus of this research programme is twofold: thematically, the programme addresses the analysis of contemporary globalization processes and of the political, economic, social and cultural relationships and structures that define and shape these processes. Rather than, for example, the study of inter-state or inter-nation relations and agreements that is the traditional domain of International Studies, the core focus of this programme is on the study of the nature and evolution of contemporary globalization itself and on globally shared issues, from a theoretical as well as a policy perspective. Methodologically, the programme promotes the multi-disciplinary analysis of contemporary globalization processes. Research topics and projects will analyse the role of, and interchanges between, people, institutions, organisations and states in shaping globalisation dynamics through the prism of (at least) two of the following academic disciplines: International Studies and Politics, Law, Economics, Management Studies, Development Studies, History, Media and Communication Studies.... [-]

Mode of Attendance: Full Time or Part Time

Graduate students in the Ph.D. programme of the School of Finance and Management study towards the University of London Ph.D.

To be considered for the Ph.D. programme in finance or management students must already have completed a good Masters degree in a relevant discipline and been awarded high grades. They must also submit an initial research proposal that demonstrates an aptitude for academic research.

The full-time Ph.D. programme normally requires three years of study in London.

Students in the Ph.D. programme study advanced courses and carry out research for their thesis. They work closely with their supervisor from the School of Finance and Management and also with other faculty members and Ph.D. students.... [-]

The Centre for Film and Screen Studies invites applications for disciplinary and interdisciplinary research in Film and Screen Studies with particular reference to Africa, Asia and the Near and Middle East. The Centre’s geographical focus on film/screen industries and movements beyond the dominant Western ‘global’ Hollywood and European economies of production, distribution, and exhibition, makes the Centre unique in its approach. We are also keen to promote research on the transnational, transcultural and multi-media nature of the image in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In a ‘global’ industry, film and media scholars and practitioners are increasingly recognizing the need for a move toward the study of image cultures and industries beyond the historical hegemonies of the European and Hollywood industries. The range of expertise in non-Western film/screen studies and cultures offered at SOAS provides a unique opportunity to respond and contribute to current critical and theoretical debates in these disciplines by providing a vibrant intellectual home for research students with an interest in film and screen studies.... [-]