PhD applications: some practical considerations

We welcome PhD applications from well qualified and enthusiastic applicants. However, we do ask you to note and act on the following:

We only take MPhil/PhD students to whom we can offer expert research supervision.  Therefore, your research question needs to engage with the research interests of one of our academic staff. If there is a member of academic staff whose research interests are related to yours, you should send them an email containing:

1.  A clear statement that you are interested in studying for a PhD, stating when you would start, and how you plan to fund the research.

2.  A statement of your research question, and the methods of investigation you think appropriate to carry it out.

3.  A brief CV.

Our academic staff are quite happy to receive approaches like this.  Your email should contain specific details of your research design: this helps the supervisor judge your knowledge of and aptitude for research. The potential supervisor may give you feedback to help you better frame your personal statement prior to you applying formally to UCL.

Please note that the Personal statement/Research Proposal is an extremely important part of your application.  It should be 1-2 pages in length.  It should clearly state the research question, and its importance.  It should state the approach to be applied in the research.  Logical thinking, clear design of research studies, and relevant methodological knowledge are all key parts of a good research proposal.  Where appropriate, the research proposal should explain how initial studies will lead on to further questions and studies in a coherent progression.  The research proposal should be your own work.

Another point to note is that we never make offers of places without receiving an official application and conducting a formal interview (which will involve the postgraduate tutor or equivalent from the relevant parent department). This holds however urgently you need a letter of support to submit with a funding application. Sorry!

Regarding practicalities: application forms are available from Registry. Except when we explicitly advertise studentships, I'm afraid we can't offer any financial support to prospective students, though there is information about some of the possible sources of support on the Registry site. Because UCLIC is an interfaculty centre, some of our research students are registered in Computer Science and some in Psychology. In deciding which department to apply through (you specify this in a box on the first page of the application form), you should take the following into account: