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SSEES offers two advanced research degrees (full- or part-time) requiring the submission of a thesis: the MPhil (40-60,000 words) and the PhD (80-100,000 words).
- The PhD thesis must provide a distinct and original contribution to the knowledge of the subject.
- The MPhil thesis should form a record of original investigation or an ordered and critical exposition of existing knowledge.
- Full-time: 3 years
- Part-time: 5 years
All MPhil/PhD students at SSEES follow the Skills Development Programme of the UCL Graduate School and must fulfill the requirements of the UK Research Councils (SSEES is an active part of UCL's ESRC Doctoral Training Centre).
Further information can be found in the SSEES PhD Handbook:
Some examples of recent or ongoing research projects are:
Economics and Business
-Competition and Entrepreneurship as Engines of Growth
-Economics of Health Behaviours in the Russian Federation
History
-Being European: Russian Travel Writing and the Balkans, 1804–1877
-Being without a State: the Thought of Petr Kropotkin between Statehood and Statelessness
Languages and Culture
-Cinematic Bordelands: Ukrainian Poetic Cinema and the ‘Experiential Ethnographic Modality’
-The Portrayal of Female Sexual Desire in 20th-century Czech Literature
Politics and Sociology
-Electoral Performance of Popularist Radical Right Parties
-Gender in the Croatian Nationalist Struggle
Benefits of studying in SSEES as a PhD student
- An extensive array of training courses in social science methodology, humanities (and some languages) is provided by SSEES.
- Paid teaching experience is often available.
- Regular opportunities to present research at seminars within SSEES and externally.
- Opportunities for field work in the SSEES region.
- The department has close ties with UK and overseas universities.
- An active research seminar and conference programme, with talks from leading scholars in our disciplines.
- A large and vibrant community of postgraduate students across our disciplines.
- Access to the UCL and the SSEES library, one of the leading research libraries in the UK for the study of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
- Location in Bloomsbury, London: close to British Library, British Museum, University of London Library and other prominent research centres.
- The opportunity to contribute to two major student-run ventures:
Slovo, which publishes articles and book reviews written by research and Masters students as well as established scholars.
Postgraduates at SSEES co-organize the International Postgraduate Student Conference, which is held every second year at SSEES (and at other universities around the world in alternate years).