International Relations

First-year research students are required to attend the International Relations Research Methods Seminar (IR501) and the International Relations Research Design Workshop (IR509). Second-year students are also strongly advised to attend the IR509 second-year workshops. Students are also encouraged to attend the following Methodology Institute courses in their first year of registration: Authoring a PhD and Developing as a Researcher: Getting Started (MI5A1); Information Literacy: tools for research (MI512). Other Methodology Institute courses, which may be of immediate or longer-term interest, include: Seminar on Sampling and Survey Methodology (MI541); Special Topics in Quantitative Analysis (MI456); Computer Packages for Qualitative Analysis (MI555), Authoring a PhD and Developing as a Researcher: The Middle Years (MI5A2); and Authoring a PhD and Developing as a Researcher: The Endgame (MI5A3) (Part-time students may attend the Methodology Institute courses over two years.)

All research students, regardless of year, are expected to attend at least one of the subject workshops offered by the International Relations Department. These include international relations theory; foreign policy analysis; security, conflict and peace studies; international institutions; political economy of international finance; European international politics; and North-South relations. Research students are also expected to attend the International Relations Seminar for Staff and Research Students (IR500), together with any other relevant Methodology Institute courses (see above). First-year research students with UK/EU fee status intending to apply for a +3 ESRC Research Studentship should ensure they are eligible, either because they already have an ESRC-recognised research track Master's degree, or by undertaking the necessary research training (MI4M1 or MI4M2 Foundations of Social Research).

The Department encourages all research students to attend the weekly Editorial Board meetings of Millennium: Journal of International Studies, the International Relations Department student-run journal.

Early in the Summer term first and second year research students will have their progress reviewed by a Research Panel of two staff members, excluding their supervisor. Its purposes are, broadly speaking, to review progress made since the student's admission or previous interview with a research panel; to offer guidance to the student and the supervisor from other teachers, as the thesis takes shape; and, by demonstrating in a systematic way the Department's interest in its research students, to reduce any sense of intellectual and social isolation which may be experienced by those whose research ploughs a lone furrow. First-year research students will be required to submit an outline and one draft chapter to their supervisor and members of their Research Panel before their Research Panel interview. Students who are deemed not to have made satisfactory progress will either be refused permission to re-register or will be required by the Research Panel to produce written work over the summer as a condition for re-registration in the autumn.

Second-year research students are normally upgraded from MPhil status to the PhD degree by the Research Panel at the end of their second year. This requires submission of two additional draft chapters of a thesis for the approval of the student's supervisor and the Panel. Students who have not made sufficient progress to be converted from MPhil to PhD registration by the end of their second year will normally be prohibited from re-registering. Students who are in their third or subsequent year/s of registration are only required to attend a Research Panel if the supervisor decides that this is necessary.

The Department's Doctoral Programme Director has overall responsibility for research students.

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