Course summary

For full-time students the first year of the PhD is spent in Cambridge, with two major activities: firstly, developing a research topic, with the guidance of a supervisor; and secondly, on training in research methods. The development of the topic often involves extensive reading into relevant literatures, the discovery of relevant information sources (such as archives or databases), and formulating plans for primary research, such as through making plans for fieldwork. This is done in combination with your primary supervisor. The first year culminates in the production of a report, which serves as the basis for the registration exercise at the end of the year. This registration exercise is required to move on to official registration for the PhD degree, and is conducted through a meeting with your postgraduate advisor and an independent assessor. Its purpose is to ensure that your research project is viable, that an appropriate methodology is being applied and that relevant literatures are being drawn upon. The second major focus of the first year is research training. There is a weekly seminar on the methodological and philosophical questions that underpin research in the contemporary social sciences which all first-year PhD students attend. Alongside the methods course, PhD students choose two further courses to attend from a range of options, such as statistics, qualitative methods and languages. This is mandatory for the registration exercise. For part-time students, whilst the methods training is expected to be carried out in the first year, additional training and the registration exercise may take place in the Lent term of the second year. The content of the second and third years for full-time students and the third and fifth years for part-time students varies considerably depending on the type of research being conducted. Many students spend a considerable portion of the second year (3/4th year part-time) of their PhD out of Cambridge on fieldwork, while others are resident throughout. To assist you in the development of your research, we schedule an annual meeting with your primary supervisor and postgraduate advisor, for which you produce a report for discussion.