About the course
As a DPhil student, you will undertake your original research project under the guidance of your supervisor, with whom you will typically meet two to three times a term. The supervisor will help develop and guide your project and, at later stages, provide feedback on chapter drafts. However, you will work to a significant extent on your own, and you will need high motivation and self-discipline.
Academics from COMPAS and the RSC, as well as SAME and ODID, can offer supervision in a wide range of subjects, including linking newly emergent economies in China and India to new flows of people, the multiple dimensions of mass mobility at the heart of Europe’s ‘migration crisis’, or the interface of new urban science and the dynamics of migrant settlement.
You will also benefit from established research and teaching programmes on migration, each focusing on collaborating with non-academics and generating research ‘impact’. In addition, the DPhil programme offers the opportunity to link research training to research practice at both research centres.
You will be admitted initially as a Probationer Research Student (PRS), with full-time students transferring to full DPhil status by the end of their first year and part-time students transferring by the end of their second year.
You will develop and begin work on your thesis topic during the probationary period. You will be offered training in appropriate research methods, language, computing and other skills. You can also attend lectures, seminars and classes in your general topic area. Full-time students are expected to be resident in Oxford for the probationary period.
Regarding research methods training, you are likely to have already completed appropriate research training at the Master’s degree level within Oxford or (when recognised by relevant research councils) another University. For example, there is a joint ‘Quantitative Research Methods for Migration Studies’ course on the MScs in Migration Studies and Refugee and Forced Migration Studies and separate ones in qualitative methods. Graduates who have followed this route will therefore have completed the necessary training. We expect students new to Oxford to attend and pass this course unless they can demonstrate equivalent research training or experience.
As part of Oxford University’s programme to transform our graduate population by creating more funding opportunities for underrepresented groups, a significant new PhD scholarship scheme, the Black Academic Futures Scholarships, offers UK Black and Mixed-Black students financial support to pursue graduate study at Oxford.
Find out more about funding opportunities for underrepresented groups and the University’s graduate access initiatives on the Graduate Access website.