Programme 1st year
What you do during your First Year
Throughout the 1st year of your PhD, you are expected to attend to classes and seminars, which will require a full-time commitment. Regular attendance to Tuesday Seminars and PhD Colloquia is also mandatory. Classes are generally held on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
During the second semester, you will start drafting your research proposal (see below).
A Graduate conference will be held in June, with all the PhD students, the faculty and other invited professors and experts. There will be plenary sessions and workshops where students will present and discuss their research.
Summer schools
You are strongly recommended to enrol in the numerous summer schools organised during the summer by several institutions. Among them, you are advised to look at the seminars offered at the University of Essex.
Other possibilities (though this is by no means an exhaustive list) are listed at the ECPR website, or they are advertised in various discussion lists.
If you receive a grant from the University and you are planning to spend at least two weeks or more at a summer school, you are entitled to a 50% increase in your grant grant for periods that you spend abroad. For indications about how to apply for grant increase, see “Spending a research period abroad“.
Admission to Second Year
Admission to the second year is conditional on the fulfilment of the following three requirements:
1. An average score on all exams of at least B-
2. A written exam on one topic of your choice (see below)
3. A positive evaluation of your dissertation proposal.
In this regard, these are the major deadlines to bear in mind:
February 1: Deadlines for the submission of dissertation proposal (15-20 pages). If the proposal has not arrived by that date, you will not be admitted to the second year. This proposal is the final document which your ability to accomplish a scientific dissertation in 2-3 years will be assessed. It should have the following structure: – Introduction, stating the major scientific goals of your project (1-2 pp) – Literature Review, to locate your dissertation within the on-going research community (4-6 pp) – Theory and Hypotheses, articulating your major hypotheses and their relevance (3-5 pp) – Research Design, presenting how do you intend to test your hypotheses (3-6 pp) – Major results expected (1-3 pp.) – List of references (2-3 pp)
Beginning of February: Written exam. You can choose among a set of topics. The exam is based on a short essay (approx 5 pp.) on a theme related the chosen topic. In due time you will be asked to communicate the topic of your choice among the following:
International Relations
Political Behavior
Methodology
Comparative Political Institutions
European Studies
Political Analysis
Public Policies
This exam is more than a repetition of a class course and it is wider than any single course we offer. We expect you to master the main literature in the relevant area of research that you choose and to be aware of topical debates in that area. In principle, we suggest that you choose a topic in either an area in which you think that you have some basic gaps in your knowledge that need to be filled or an area that relates to the field of your dissertation. Briefly put, this exam is a first step toward choosing a specialisation in your career as a political scientist. Given your experience during the 1st year, we expect that you will be able to autonomously find and organize the relevant literature references. As to the content of the exam, it will consist of a maximum 5 pages discussion of one area of research in the topic you have chosen. You will have a choice among 2-3 questions and you will choose only one of them. The exam will last 2-3 hours. To offer you some examples, here are some of the questions asked in the last three years.
[Last Updated: feb 26, 21:16]