Postgraduate Research

Our programme is designed as an integrated sequence that trains you in key theoretical, methodological and practical approaches to conducting research. Most of our students take four years in total to complete their PhD, although it is possible to finish in three.

Year 1
Empirical students take courses on: research design, quantitative methods, qualitative methods and ‘topics in political science’  Political theory students take ‘topics in political science’ and can take other political theory modules as required.

All students develop a plan for their thesis including systematic literature review and methodology papers.

Year 2
All students undertake further modules as required, for instance in advanced quantitative methods.

Subject to satisfactory performance, students formally upgrade from MPhil to PhD status, submitting a detailed plan for the thesis with an internal viva examined by two academic staff from the department. By the end of the year, students will have made substantial progress in their research.

Years 3-4
Conducting independent research and writing up of thesis, with further methods courses and skills development as appropriate.

By the end of year 4, the PhD thesis is examined by a viva committee comprising of two experts in the field: an external examiner and an internal examiner who is normally from UCL.

Note: We only offer our PhD programme on a full time basis and do not offer either part time or distance learning study.  There is only one intake per year in September

As a PhD student, you can take advantage of all the varied training, research and teaching activities in our department.

We offer a wide range of advanced postgraduate quantitative and qualitative methods courses as well as modules on substantive political science topics, all of which are available for PhD students. Our world-class training in quantitative methods includes our masters degree in Data Science and Public Policy with advanced courses covering causal inference, quantitative text analysis and machine learning. All postgraduate modules can be viewed here. Funding is also available for you to take external training courses in specialised areas.

In addition, the department has a vibrant research environment centred around a series of seminars and institutes. We treat our PhD students as valued colleagues, and in return they are expected to play a full part in department life. Every week you will join academic staff members at the departmental research seminar or political theory seminar, as well as seminars hosted by specific research groups in the department such as Comparative Political Economy and Behaviour, Conflict and Change, Climate Politics, Politics of the Global South, Political Theory, Public Policy and the Constitution Unit. These seminars will complement your formal training by allowing you to comment on and learn about the research of internal and external presenters. PhD students at our department also have their own research seminar in which they present their work and receive feedback from both faculty and the other PhD students. Finally, the department also hosts external speakers from outside academia through the Policy & Practice seminar series, the Constitution Unit and other events. Almost all of our PhD students also do some teaching whilst in the department, primarily small-group classes with undergraduates. This is very rewarding in its own right, as well as an invaluable experience if you are aiming for a future career in academia.  Our students also benefit from generous additional funding for research expenses including for fieldwork, surveys, conference travel and extra training courses.

Academic staff have a strong record of research and publication within all the main subfields of politics, including:

• British politics: constitutional and parliamentary reform; devolution; electoral participation; alternative electoral systems.
• Comparative politics and government: democratisation; the politics of ethnicity; political campaigns and electoral behaviour; comparative urban, rural, and local politics; public opinion and political behaviour; politics of the global south and development; regional expertise including Africa, China, Europe, East Asia, Latin America and the USA; EU politics and policy.
• Human rights: human rights and globalisation; theories of human rights and justice; adjudication and interpretation; democracy, religion and human rights; global poverty and human rights; militias, non-state actors.
• International relations: international peace and security; wars and civil conflict; globalisation and global governance; international migration; international finance; international trade and investment.
• Political economy: distributive politics and welfare states; political economy of development; politics of economic policy.
• Public policy: business-government relations; executive and bureaucratic politics; public management; public ethics.
• Political theory: the history of modern political thought; multiculturalism, toleration and citizenship; democracy and constitutionalism; contemporary political philosophy.

The official UCL Prospectus for the PhD degree in Political Science can be found here.

Admission to our PhD programme, and our departmental scholarships, is very competitive. The minimum academic requirements for entry to the PhD Programme are (1) Upper Second Class Honours Degree (or equivalent) and (2) Merit (or equivalent) in a recognised Masters Degree course in a relevant subject and (3) a minimum 65% mark on the Masters Degree dissertation (or equivalent). At least one of the three has to be a First Class/distinction (or equivalent). Students applying for the 1+3 without a Masters Degree will need to have a First Class Honours Degree (or equivalent), or be clearly on track to achieve one. In exceptional circumstances, these criteria may be subject to revision.

Beyond this, we assess applications for entry in terms of three criteria: (1) academic background, relevant experience and suitability for PhD study; (2) quality of the research proposal; and (3) the suitability of the nominated supervisors and wider department for your topic. Applications need to demonstrate strength across all three areas.

English Language Proficiency
Accepted students will be required to prove their proficiency in English, either through having completed a recent degree in English in an English-speaking country, or via a recognised test. Further information on this requirement is available Here 

There are a number of options available to fund your PhD. The PhD application form requires you to list which funding opportunities you wish to be considered for. You are advised to list all relevant sources. 

Please note: ESRC scholarships require additional applications, as described below.

Clara Collet Departmental PhD Awards
The department offer 4-year PhD Scholarships to prospective PhD candidates starting in 2026. The award covers fees (home or overseas) and a stipend of £22,780 per year. All applicants should usually request to be considered for this award. Decisions on awarding these scholarships will be made at the same time as decisions on acceptance to the PhD programme.

ESRC Doctoral Competition: UCL, Bloomsbury and East London Partnership
These prestigious awards are relevant for applicants interested in any area of empirical political science. Subject to availability, they cover tuition fees for 3.5 years, plus stipend tbc. Applicants who wish to be considered must first submit a complete application for admission to the PhD Programme in the Department of Political Science, noting their intention to apply for ESRC funding, and must also submit a preliminary application to UBEL by 10th November 2025 (23.59). See the website for more information on applying.

Research Excellence Scholarship (RES)
UCL’s Research Excellence Scholarships (RES) aim to attract talented and ambitious students to UCL to undertake research. Approximately 40 UCL-RES awards are available annually across the university, covering fees and stipend for four years. 
The department will invite applications from selected 
candidates after shortlisting has taken place in December 2025.

Other Fellowships and Scholarships
You may apply for other outside funding sources, such as those offered by governments and foundations in your home country, and use this funding for your PhD at UCL. In all cases, you should apply to these funding sources separately and you will also need to gain admission to our PhD programme through the departmental application process.

Teaching Assistantships
The department offers many opportunities for teaching alongside your PhD study. The duties of a Teaching Assistant include seminar teaching and coursework/examination marking. If awarded a departmental Clara Collet scholarship, you will be required to undertake some teaching in return for the award. Other students are eligible for paid teaching assistant roles in the department, which are advertised annually. Please note these are part-time roles only and are not guaranteed to be available. They therefore cannot be relied upon as the sole source of funding for your PhD. More information on teaching at UCL as a PhD student can be found at the UCL Postgraduate Teaching Assistant Hub.

Depending on the length of their stay, some doctoral students who are registered at another institution (typically overseas) and wish to make a short visit to the department may be able to join without incurring fees. Please email the PhD Manager at polsci.admissions@ucl.ac.uk for more information on this.

Doctoral students can also formally visit the school for a longer period of time to carry out research that will contribute to their degree. At UCL, these visiting students are known as affiliate students. The guidelines for graduate affiliate students are as follows:

• An affiliate student is normally one who is registered for a qualification elsewhere but who wishes to study at UCL to complement the work done at his or her home institution. In appropriate cases it may be possible to assign credit
  for the work done at UCL, but it is not possible to receive a UCL qualification as an affiliate student.
• Graduate Affiliate Status is expected to appeal mainly to international students. The length of study at UCL varies normally between 3 months and one year. Graduate affiliates may apply independently. Full-time and part-time affiliate study at graduate level, including research, is possible. Applicants for graduate level affiliate study must possess an acceptable university degree (or equivalent) and meet UCL's English Language requirement. Tuition fees are the same as for the comparable degree programme. For affiliate research, the pro rata amount depends on the number of weeks of study at UCL. For taught programmes, the amount charged depends on which term, or terms, are spent at UCL.
• Applicants for graduate affiliate research admission should first check that the there is a member of academic staff in the relevant academic field who can supervise the research, and are willing to do so (initial enquiries should be sent to polsci.admissions@ucl.ac.uk).* Please refer to the Visiting Research Students webpage for guidance on how to apply.

* Affiliate students are regarded as SPP MPhil/PhD students with access to the usual research student facilities (e.g. PhD seminar, student computer account, library access, PhD room access).

We usually expect applicants to already have (or be studying for) a masters degree in political science or a related field. If this is the case, you should apply for the +3-4 programme. In rare cases we also offer a 1+3 programme, covering a masters degree in the department followed by 3 years of PhD study.

+3-4 PhD Programme
For the +3-4 PhD Programme, qualified students submit an application form using the online UCL Admissions system. The application form requires a detailed research proposal and names of two potential supervisors. Both items are required for the application to be reviewed. See below for more information on the Research Proposal. When choosing two potential supervisors, students should make sure that their research proposal fits with the supervisors’ research interests (find out about our academic staff here). Students are advised to email potential supervisors directly to discuss their suitability to supervise the proposal, prior to formal submission.

1+3 PhD Programme
Students applying to the 1+3 PhD Programme must contact the PhD Programme Manager (polsci.admissions@ucl.ac.uk) and discuss the application requirements before submitting the online application form. For the masters year, students apply to a MSc or MA programme at the department. In addition to the Masters Degree application, students submit a research proposal using the research proposal template. We expect the proposal to be less developed than for the +3 PhD Programme application but it still has to cover all the areas identified in our research proposal template. At the end of the masters year students submit an application for the +3 PhD Programme that contains all the required information described in the relevant section above. Students may wish to change the research focus after the masters year and, with the help of the masters year supervisor, this may be reflected in a new research proposal as part of the +3 PhD Programme application.

Research Proposal
Your application must include a detailed research proposal addressing relevant literature and clearly outlining your research question(s), research design (including data and methods, where appropriate), plans for completing the work including a timeline, and expected contribution to the literature. It is important that the proposal is detailed, realistic and feasible in practical terms. MPhil/PhD Degree Outline Research Proposal Template

Application Deadline: Friday 5th December 2025 (for all applicants)

In addition: Please note the 10th November 2025 deadline (TBC) for preliminary ESRC funding applications. See the Funding page page for more information.

It is your responsibility to ensure that all parts of the application, including transcripts and references, are completed and submitted to UCL by the 5th December deadline. Candidates must also identify all their funding intentions in the relevant section of the application form.

We will review applications and shortlist leading applications by early January 2026. Shortlisted applicants will then be interviewed online by two academic staff (usually, the potential supervisors named in the application) to further discuss their research plans and suitability for PhD study. Shortlisted candidates will be notified of the final outcome in February 2026. If you accept an offer from us, your PhD programme will begin in late September 2026. We consider applications for funding via our Department Clara Collet Awards at the same time, and applicants will also be notified of whether they have received this funding by early February 2026. You may be placed on a Waiting List, with funding made available at a later date if a space becomes available.

Final decisions on AHRC and ESRC scholarship applications are usually made in late April or early May.

Queries relating to the application process, including funding, can be directed to:
The Department of Political Science/School of Public Policy (SPP) Admissions, PhD Manager: polsci.admissions@ucl.ac.uk

Other informal enquiries and questions about the MPhil/PhD Programme can be directed to: The Programme Director: Dr Tom O'Grady: t.o'grady@ucl.ac.uk