Your PhD Proposal
This is the most important part of your application, and you should take some care to prepare this.
We would encourage prospective students to look at our research pages to consider what areas are of interest to them. Here you will find our current research, our research centres and themes, and research interests of individual members of staff.
If you feel there is a member of staff who you would be particularly interested in working with, you might want to contact them to talk about your ideas. They might be very useful in helping you to develop your research proposal, and will also be able to review and support your application once received.
Your research proposal must be no less than 500 words (maximum 1,500 words) and include:
- Your proposed title
- Background to the research
- Aims and objectives of the research
- Your research questions
- How the research project will be carried out and an indication of the methodologies which you might employ
- What methods you will use for data analysis
- The anticipated outcomes from the project, in terms of its contribution to knowledge and understanding, new methodologies and techniques, data, etc.
- References
We know that your ideas will develop once you are studying, but this proposal is your opportunity to show interested staff members that you know your field, you have a clear research question, and have some ideas for how you will answer it. Please do not send additional items, such as reports from previous research, unless we ask you to do this.