Page 2 of 4, 50 Part time PhD Programmes in Social Sciences in Europe for 2024

Undertaking doctoral research allows you to develop in-depth knowledge while making a meaningful contribution to your chosen field. With guidance from our expert supervisors, you'll carry out extensive independent research culminating in a thesis of up to 100,000 words. The Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), based at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, offers specialist doctoral supervision across the humanities and social sciences, covering Latin America and the Caribbean.

SOAS has an international reputation for excellence in the field of South Asian studies earned by the world-leading research undertaken. REF 2014 submissions by members of the Department included significant and paradigm-shifting monographs, edited collections, journal articles and book chapters on literature, cinema cultural history and postcolonial studies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The MPhil/PhD in Gender Studies is a unique programme combining cutting edge theorizing in Gender Studies with the special areas expertise related to Africa, Asia and the Middle East which has been a trademark of SOAS. The Centre for Gender Studies welcomes applications from research students for our MPhil/PhD programme in all areas of Gender Studies.

China and Inner Asia Department are 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 such diverse topics as colour symbolism in ancient Chinese texts, Chinese cinema, and Chinese Braille systems, and translation studies). If necessary, arrangements can be made for joint supervision with teachers from other departments of SOAS. Research undertaken at MPhil and PhD level is based on literary, documentary, and archive materials in the languages of the area and/or on fieldwork conducted in those languages. Our alumni are to be found in academic and government posts, journalism and other media, museums, art galleries, aid agencies, libraries, charities, medicine, and large and small businesses of many kinds all over the world, and a large number of them work in the area or in the cultural field of their studies.

Supervision is provided for research leading to MPhil and PhD degrees within the broad general area of African studies. Research topics such as the study of a language (from a descriptive, comparative, philological or textual point of view), or of literature (whether author-based, thematic or comparative), or of any of the performing arts, which falls within our own core expertise, are supervised entirely in the Department. However, there is great potential for extending the range of topics by means of joint supervision with colleagues from other departments and centres.