 So in this presentation today I'm going to be looking at what you should do if you're interested in doing a PhD at SOAS and what actually a PhD at SOAS will entail. So in terms of why you might want to study a PhD at SOAS is that we're located in the heart of London, so you have access to lots of different facilities, both on the site itself but also through the links and contacts we have within the city, and the fact that it is a thriving city with lots of different organisations, lots of different sectors, all based within London. We're a global top 50 university for arts and humanities, we have well classed facilities which I'll go into in more detail later, we have leading academics who are practitioners in the field, we offer small class sizes, we have a flexible interdisciplinary degree approach, and we have a very diverse and international student population. In terms of why you might want to study a PhD at SOAS, as a PhD student at SOAS you'll be joining a research community of doctoral researchers from across the globe. You'll play a vital role in developing our vibrant intellectual culture. You will also benefit from access to well classed facilities of the highest quality, including a comprehensive programme of research training and skills development, fully recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council. We have highly experienced and research active staff who will act as your supervisors, and at SOAS you may have one supervisor, you may have more than one supervisor depending on the piece of research you're doing. We do tend to try and mirror the process of which your research will be reviewed, and so we always do try to have more than one academic who will be acting as a supervisor, with one of them being your primary supervisor. We have integrated training programmes and dedicated careers advisors for research students. We have research partnerships with Chase and the Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network, enabling you to access training at other institutions and build your research network. We have opportunities to publish your work through our student-led journal, SOAS Journal of Postgraduate Research, funding to present your work at conferences, and also to complete a period of overseas fieldwork should you want to do fieldwork and should your research require that. We also access to the Outstanding SOAS Library, so when we look at the library, it is one of five national research libraries in the UK, and it is also the largest library resource for East Asia in Europe, and also the largest library resource for the Middle East and Central Asia. We also have within our SOAS Library specialist librarians who will be able to help you source a range of different materials, both which are already housed within the SOAS Library and those outside of the SOAS Library. We also have the Research Students Association is the highly active community of research students who organise social and academic events and who advocate for the needs of research students. In terms of what you can do your research in, as I say, SOAS offers a very wide-ranging and very interdisciplinary approach across the social sciences and humanities. So all of these subjects here are subjects that you can do your research in, but what you do your research in is really up to you. Students are applying to us for research. We expect them to come with a well thought out idea to have put that idea down to kind of a one to two page overview at first and to send that into our academic staff to see if they would be interested in that and also if they believe they are the right fit for that. Following that we do expect that as part of the application process that a student actually puts together a full research proposal in order to come to us, but it can be really wide ranging it can sit over one or two areas, possibly even three areas. And again you could have a research supervisor from more than one area across the university. This kind of other say gives you a wider insight into the programs that we offer. What we should also say is that SOAS is very much about looking at a very global perspective, but also a very contextualised perspective. So if you wanted to do a piece of research of an anthropological nature but you wanted to focus in on South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Middle East you could do. But also you could do a comparative piece where you're comparing maybe two different regions, countries, areas of the world. So in terms of the research training provision that we offer at SOAS pursuing a PhD is more than just producing a thesis and acquiring a scholarly specialism. Your motivations for embarking on a PhD journey may vary, but at the end of it you'll be expected to be able to operate as an independent and competent researcher. And SOAS is committed to the academic and professional development of all its doctoral researchers. So within this, within the doctoral school, we offer courses and workshops specifically for research students. So this will look at things like research and thesis writing, generic methods and techniques for data collection and analysis, research integrity and management, and academic publication and presentation. We also have a number of online courses that you can take as part of your PhD or even in preparation for your PhD, such as the understanding research methods MOOC, which you can find on our website. And that will basically allow you to take that as a free of charge course. It normally takes about five weeks to complete and it's about two hours per day for each student to do. So if you don't have to pay for it, if you want to get a certificate at the end of it, you could pay for it, but it is free of charge for you to take and it can be done asynchronously. So you don't need to be online at any particular time, particularly if you are a international student and time differences would be an issue around that. And then we also offer one to one consultations by appointment with the doctoral school just about either your current piece of research or maybe what you might be thinking about going on to after your research or additional training that you feel you might need. We then also have the career service. So the career service offer one to one 30 minute consultations, which are about career planning, CVs, applications, mock interviews, etc. These run on Thursdays from 10 to 12, and you can book yourself into as many of those as you want each week in order to help you as you go through your program. So some students will do it at the start and then maybe halfway through their first year and then at the end of their first year and so on and so forth. And then we also have a number of postgraduate research workshops, and those look at academic career planning, academic applications and CVs, academic planning beyond academia, non-academic applications and CVs, academic and non-academic interview skills, networking skills and presentation skills. And then we also offer a range of events for doctoral students such as the academic careers day and the research careers outside of academic and other PhD level careers. We also have a number of other careers events that are not necessarily just focused on PhD but are open to all of our students if you're looking at an undergraduate postgraduate or postgraduate research program. And those are events with employers and alumni. And they span throughout the year. And then we also have a number of online resources and further information, particularly for early career researchers. And then we also have more professional training which is delivered through the professional development and higher education program. And this is a credited program for again, GTAs and early career lecturers. And so within these, you'll look at a number of skills workshops and you'll also look at a number of professional development workshops. And then we also offer wider skills workshops in things like reading and note taking, avoiding plagiarism, referencing issues and critical thinking. And you may be thinking as a research student, you know, I've already been through an undergraduate degree. I've already been through possibly a postgraduate taught degree. I feel I have really strong skills in those areas. I might not need that. But particularly if you are either an international student, so coming from a different educational system, there can be many differences in terms of things like plagiarism and referencing. And also, even if you are a UK based student, but possibly you're coming in from one discipline to another, there can also be various differences within that. So it would be a good idea to take up these opportunities and they are all free of charge for you. And then within our if sales department, we do also have in session or academic English support for international students at all levels. So again, if you are an international student and you have your English language qualification but you think you would benefit from a couple more supportive classes within academic English you can look at taking those. And we also have relevant courses which include kind of research reading, preparing and writing for dissertations, grammar, improvement and seminar skills. So then moving on to our IT and our library facilities as part of the research training provision. We have subject librarians and all research students are encouraged to arrange a one to one training session with their subject librarian. So if you are doing a research project that would actually span over a couple of different subjects then you may want to schedule a session with more than one of the subject librarians as you're doing a more interdisciplinary piece. We also have interlibrary loans and access to other libraries so the interlibrary loans are from the British Library and are free of charge for postgraduate students. So it allows you to access and borrow books from over 160 different academic libraries. We also use the University of London libraries because we are one of 18 member institutions at the University of London, which allows you to use library spaces at any of the other University of London universities. And they span across London and also to the outskirts of London as well. We have a lot of e-books and e-journals so the library provides access to over 100,000 e-books and over 40,000 e-journals. And we have specialist databases where the library provides access to 70 plus specialist databases, including bibliographies, abstracts and indexes for literature searching, legal databases, financial databases, data and statistics, primary resource materials and full text dissertations and thesis. And also resources in Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. We also have the archives and special collections which is a unique collection of archives manuscripts and rare books on Africa Asia in the Middle East, accessible in the special collections reading room on level F. We have training sessions, so we offer a large program of workshops and training opportunities, including training on Zotero, referencing management tool, and all students can book a one to one session with their subject librarian for that. So, we also offer through the Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network a wide range of training courses for research students across different institutions, and the participating institutions. Some of them are listed here but there are also more. So University College London, Beck Beck, London School of Economics, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, School of Advanced Study, Royal Ventury College and King's College London. And there are also doctoral training sessions, centres and other opportunities through them as well, which you should explore during your time with us. One, to have more access to have more exposure, but also because you will meet other research students from other institutions as well and that will help you to grow your research network. And then we also have access to research methods training courses and events held a number of higher education institutions. And through the National Centre of Research Methods. Just say touch on here visiting research students because some of you in the audience may be actually thinking of visiting us from another institution. So it may be where you have actually already started embarking on your PhD at another institution, but the PhD project you have has a link to us and you would gain more from coming to us. So this is designed for students who already embarked as I say on their doctoral research in their home institution but want to take advantage of our unique resources. Applicants wishing to undertake supervised research without registering for a degree course are eligible to apply. So it's not formally assessed on on their work and they can't be awarded a qualification three so as because you would be awarded it through your home institution. But you can enroll for one, two or three terms for an academic year and gain a lot of resources from us in terms of our research networks, our research centres, our research provision and facilities, our supervisors. And also, all research students are allowed to take modules throughout their program which I'll touch on a bit later and that would also include visiting research students. And it's the same application process as the MPhil or the PhD which I'll go into in later. So in terms of entry requirements, the schools minimum entry requirement for applying for the PhD or the visiting research programme is a good UK Masters degree, or an overseas equivalent in an relevant area to the programme you are applying to, or to the piece of research you're doing if it is going to span over a couple of different departments. In some cases prior knowledge of a language may be necessary or advisable depending on what you're doing your research on. And some departments may have more specific entry requirements for their programme which would be listed on the department pages of the website. So for instance, if you are thinking of doing a PhD within our School of Finance and Management, or you are thinking of doing a PhD within our School of Economics, there may be some additional economics foundation modules and programmes that we would have expected you to have taken either if you had taken your degree within the UK or if you had taken your degree outside of the UK. But to include in your application if you're planning to apply to us. So an application is only considered complete if the following has been provided. So a formal application form, a supporting statement or personal statement as it sometimes referred to, an up to date CV or resume, a research proposal, full academic transcripts of your college or university studies to date with official translations from the institution or provided by a recognised translator if not in English copies of your degree certificates, diplomas, again with translation, if not in English, and evidence of your English language proficiency or the intention to take a recognised English language test so if you're applying before you've taken your English language test that's not a problem for us but we would just ask that you let us know that you have the intention to take that so we can bear that in mind. And then we normally ask for one reference and this could be confidentially submitted by your referee. And the doctoral school admissions team will check that all required documentation has been provided and that the references acceptable and meets our requirements during the initial stage of assessment. So what we normally suggest before you do this though is that you would first go onto our website and look at who our academic staff are within the areas in which you're planning to do your research. All of our academic staff have profiles on our website and it also includes their email addresses. What we would then suggest you do is write an email to them with a, an overview of the piece of research you're planning to do so one to two pages maximum. And why you think that they would be the right supervisor for you so what within their background. It may be their teaching background it may be as a practitioner it may be in their own research background. Do you think is related to your particular piece of study and why would they be a good supervisor for you. What that supervisor would then do or that academic member of staff would review that and then say yes there are a number of areas where I do think I would be the right supervisor for you. So I'll start a conversation with you that would normally last about the next kind of four to six weeks, depending on how, how strong and full your initial kind of overview was and how closely it is linked to their existing research or what they're teaching on or possibly their background as a practitioner. So you need to hone that research proposal so that by the time you look to put the application on the website as per this slide here, you would have a fully honed and ready research proposal to submit. So what would the personal statement be made of and what would the research proposal look like so if you're looking at the personal statement, this should explain your motivation for applying to so as and your chosen program. So here to outline your skills and your experiences that would be relevant to your time at SOAS and how you would perform as a doctoral research within the school, and it should be a minimum length of one page. So you can include in there any of your academic background to date any work experience that you've had to date that's relevant, any internship experience. So if you have been say a research assistant that would also be helpful and just really sort of talking about how you plan to undertake your studies at SOAS and why SOAS above another institution. And then in the research proposal this is where you're coming into the real kind of detail of your piece of research so again it's a minimum of 1000 to 2000 words. It's an outline of your proposed research topic, an outline of your proposed research method. It should include an outline contingency plan, and a one page preliminary bibliography of source materials that you intend to use. It is also often beneficial they're not mandatory to make contact with the academic as I've said at SOAS who shares your research interests and I would say that though we say that's not mandatory. So just be really helpful in terms of your application being assessed, because we want students to really looked into who the academic staff are. And our team will do that for you so if you haven't indicated an academic who you would like to be your supervisor, we will send it round to who we believe the appropriate departments are, but that could take longer for your, your proposal to be reviewed for this proposal inside and out. And so actually you should be the best person to select a supervisor for you. What I would suggest to do though is when you are sending out to the academics in that first instance to have a look at before you submitted a full application, that you actually pick around three academics to send it to that you think are closely related to your particular area of research. So in terms of looking at the timeline, you can apply from now so applications are open they opened from the start of November for our PhD programs for September entry applications they'll go up to the 15th of June 2023. So in terms of applications, they've actually already closed because that's for the visiting research students only and they, those students would need to have arranged and come into us ahead of time. And then we also have April applications, again for visiting research students, and that will close at the end of January. So the response time for a complete application is about five to eight weeks. And that's just because in terms of a research proposal. There's a little bit more detail that we need to go into comparatively to a master's talk program. And we need to make sure that we have the adequate resources, both for you as a doctoral student on the whole, but also within your particular department and then also with your supervisor. And then once you have your unconditional or firm status, if you are an international student, you can begin the CAS or visa process. And we will be producing the CAS, CAS letters as early as kind of April time, which is six months before you're due to come in. And then also we have a five to 10 working day turnaround with those requests, but we do try to get those out as quickly as possible. So then in terms of English language requirements and again this is more for international students, we do have English language requirements that you will need to be able to meet in order to take a research program with us. So these are all listed here in terms of the current English language provision that we accept, we may well have additional English language options that come up. And so do check back on our website for those regularly. And then we also, as I say, do offer an in-sessional option, which is free of charge where you have met the English language requirement, but you believe that you would just like further assistance with that. And then if you haven't met our English language requirement as stated above here, we do have a four and eight week pre-sessional English course, which is a paid for course and then you can find that on the if sales page of our website. And so just to go through those courses we have an online access to English language course, which is 11 weeks intensive language. We also have the ELAS English language and academic studies is if you want additional longer term English language courses, but obviously that would affect when you would actually register at SOAS for a PhD program. So if you're looking at the tuition fees, if you're looking at the tuition fees for the next year, so 2023, you'll be looking at home fees of 4,860 pounds per year and overseas fees of 21,630 pounds per year. That can also be broken down and paid in installments rather than paying it as one lump sum. And you can find more information on that on our website. And then we do have a number of funding options for students. So you would need to check our website back on that to have a look and see what we offer. And when we offer it, there have been some changes to the loans that we offer so it's well worth checking on those pages. And then we do have a range of scholarships that you can also look to apply to, both which are managed internally by SOAS, but also some which are external funding options. So this just lists some of them, and you can go to our website for more details on that. But just to let you know you would need to have an offer to study with us before you can apply for most of these scholarships. So, or at the very least have put in an application and have had that application partially reviewed virus. So just really important to make sure that you get your applications in as early as you can so that we are able to process those as early as we can. And then that allows you to have more access to funding options at the research level. And you will find that when you go to our research scholarships on our website that we do have scholarships aimed at different academic areas, so different subjects, some would be aimed at students coming from different regions. Some would be more wide arranging but there must be a certain aspect within their their piece of research so it might not be about where a student is from it might not be about which subject the student is is kind of based in in terms of the university but it could be a common theme that they want to run through the research. So that takes me to the end of the presentation. And so I'm more than happy to answer any questions I think I can see a question that has come up and said if we do not receive a scholarship would it be possible to defer entry whilst waiting for funding. So just to let you know, you can defer your studies. We normally allow deferrals for one year in the first instance. And then we would review a deferral for a second year. But it would be on a case by case basis because we just need to make sure that that supervisor would be available to you in that next year. And then we are reviewing an application and when a supervisor is agreeing to supervise you and they are very much looking at whether they will be available for that year, the next year, and the year after. So if you are looking to defer your entry, it may mean that in one of the following years, they may be on research leave or they may already know that they have a number of other students who will be coming into a research program under their supervision. So what we do at SOAS in terms of in terms of our supervisors is we do limit how many students they can supervise in any given year, because what we want to do is we want to make sure that they are able to offer the right level of supervised supervision and right level of support to each student and if they are supervising quite a large number of students whilst teaching on the programs and whilst undertaking their own research and possibly whilst doing a practitioner kind of role. We find that they may not be able to offer the right level of assistance so we do limit somewhat our academics to how many students they can supervise in any given year. So I'm happy you found the presentation informative do feel free to drop down any questions that you would like I've seen a few more questions so I'm going to go through each of them. So I've got a question here said please are there PhD studentship opportunities. So yes we do offer a PhD studentship programme each year. And then we also have a range of other PhD scholarships that aren't necessarily referred to as a studentship, but are a research scholarship. Some of them come through a range of outside funding bodies. Some of them are say in line with case for example. So if you go to the scholarships page of our website that is just being updated now and it should be fully up to date within the next week or so. And so you will should be able to find next this the scholarships for this next year on there. Okay, and then I've got another question here that says how much time our part time students required to be on campus. This will depend on which programme you're doing. So if you are doing a PhD programme. This is a little bit more flexible for you because what you'll be doing is you'll mostly be having one to one meetings with your supervisor you will also be to undertaking a research methodology and skills module. So what we normally do is when you start your PhD programme you will meet with your supervisor, and you will talk to them about a range of our postgraduate taught modules that would be in line and related to your research, and that would actually allow you more exposure, more knowledge for your for your research and so you will actually audit those postgraduate taught modules. So much time you spend on campus will depend on how many modules you are planning to to audit and also the spread of those modules whether they are in one department or across a number of departments. But I would say on average for part time students is about two days per week. The recording will be shared so the recording will be sent round to everybody who registered so if you've attended today it'll be sent round to you and if you registered for today it didn't attend will also be sent round. So this is saying sorry I missed the start do we need to find a supervisor so yes the best option for it though it's not technically mandatory you can actually put an application through the website without finding your own supervisor. We don't usually recommend it that way just because it will take us longer to to look at your application. Just because we would then need to do that that piece of work of finding the supervisor for you so it can take longer for your application to go through. If you choose just to put an application through the website without looking at the academic staff but I also just think from your own. From your own benefit is it's really a good idea to have a look through the website see who all our academic staff are all of them will have full profiles on the website will tell you what research they've already undertaken themselves what areas they teach on. It will tell you what areas they have been maybe practitioners and in the field for and it will also tell you who they're currently supervising and what kind of projects they're currently supervising as well as the research centers that they are involved in. So I think that's really kind of key to kind of go through the website to kind of make a short list of academics who you feel are related to your particular piece of work. And then I would say to put together a one to two page overview of your piece of research that you're planning to do and all of their email addresses are on the website so you can send them an email and introduce yourself and just say you've read their background and their profile and you think it matches with what you want to do. And here is a quick overview of the piece of research, they will then read that and if they feel that yes this is, this is linked to them and they do feel that they would be interested and also the right supervisor for you, because it is a two way street at the end of the day, they will then write back to you and they probably would spend another kind of depending on how detailed that that kind of overview was they'd probably spend a couple of weeks with you just kind of discussing that particular overview and what other areas you might want to consider and then that would help you in writing that final research proposal to then put in as part of your application. So I do think it's really important to do that, but I also think it's important to maybe have a short list of three academic staff within our university that you think you cover that and and that is not that I wouldn't say is a difficult task at SOAS because even though all of our academics have, you know, individual specialisms, the thing at SOAS is that all of our programs, because we are a bit more of a specialist school are interconnected and intersected with each other. So it is more likely that you would find more than one supervisor, possibly from a few different academic departments who would, who would be good to be your supervisor for any given piece of research that you were doing. Okay, so then I've got another question that says are all departments taking PhD students currently so yes all of our departments are taking PhD students currently. So it does depend on whether that academic member or staff is already at capacity in terms of the students that they are currently supervising, or whether they would be on research leave at any point in the next three to four years because doing a PhD with us is about three years with an additional six months writing up so they want to make sure that they're going to be available to you during the length of your program. And another question that says I'm doing a postgraduate, which I will be completing in August and next year. Can I apply without uploading the transcripts of my degree? Yes, so you can upload the transcripts of the degrees that you already have. If you have any preliminary transcripts for the post graduation program that you're currently doing, you can upload the transcripts to date. If you don't have them, that's not a problem. You can just let us know what degree you are taking and when you are expecting your grades. And then we would still review your application based on that. So now I've got another question that says what about entrance exam or something like that. So we don't actually have any entrance exams. So in the UK it's not very common to have entry exams at the postgraduate level, whether it be the taught level or whether it be the research level. So really we're looking at your academic background today. We can also take into account your work experience today if you have any relevant work experience. And then also, you know, the real onus is on that research proposal because we want to see that that's a really, really strong proposal and that you've really thought about all aspects of the piece and that it also marries up with the research that we already do and the institutional expertise that we have. So the only kind of exam that you would need to take is if you are an international student and you are, you need an English language test then obviously technically that would constitute an exam. Okay, then says I have a question about the application itself. We are asked if we have applied or planning to apply to some other schools, how does this affect our application. The first four school card shows that I have sent scores to four more institutions. It doesn't, it doesn't impact your application at all. So we don't mind if you're applying to other schools we know that you would be applying to other schools. We just, we usually like to ask if students want to tell us they can do if they don't want to tell us they don't have to. We also kind of build up a knowledge of maybe networks that we can look to pursue in the future based on the institutions that students are also looking at. So then we've got another question that says who should I contact for law and criminology department. So, in terms of the law school if you go on to our law pages of the website you will find we have quite a lot of law students studying, studying teaching so as so what I would say to do is to have a look at them and they will note their expertise. So you could first start looking at those who are specializing in international criminal law. But it would also be a good idea to kind of take a wider look at the law school because many of our academics have actually taught on more than one area of law, or may have like a contextualized background that works for you depending on if you are planning to do your research on a particular region of the world. So I would have a look at all of the law school academics through our law pages for criminology I'd also say that you could look at our development studies department. We have academics within our development studies department which probably would be quite helpful so you could look at someone like Christopher Kramer. And then you could also look at our politics department. And so there would be a number of politics academics that would also probably be of interest to you there and actually also. You could look as well in anthropology and there may be a couple of anthropology academics that would also be appropriate for you so the real thing is just have a really close look through our website I would say law would probably be your first port of call and then development studies politics and anthropology after that. And then I've got another question here is says is it possible to engage in teaching activities whilst undertaking a PhD at SOAS. So, if you are chosen as one of the students who will be getting the studentship, then that is included in as part of the kind of criteria. If you are getting another scholarship through a research scholarship to us some of the other scholarships again do include a assisting kind of criteria within there as well. But the other option you can do is looking at getting involved in any of the particular research centers that we have at SOAS. And then also you can look at engaging through being a student ambassador at SOAS or also just getting involved with the ad hoc events that we that we provide each year. So, for instance, the academic departments will look to put on a number of events, both in person and online, and it could be a number of forums or panels or conferences, or it could be a seminar series where they would also like to engage a and so you can look at getting involved from those aspects as well. And then there's other opportunities for students who are already working part time. So, there's definitely options for you as a part time student so all of our degrees can be taken as full time or part time. If you are a home student. If you are an international student unfortunately you do have to take the PhD as a, as a full time. We don't unfortunately allow part time for international. So, in terms of distance as a PhD student, you don't necessarily have as many contact hours as you would have as a taught students so basically within that you're going to have regular meetings with your academic supervisor you will have a module that you're taking on research methodology and research skills. And then as I say it will be dependent on how many modules you end up auditing that are related to your area as to how much time you would need to spend on campus. Oh, and I should also add into that if you are planning to do some time doing field work. So, possibly time spent outside of the university, then that would be agreed with your supervisor so basically if you're doing a piece of research that is about a particular region of the world then, arguably you don't need to be at so as for that entire time. So what we would then say is that during that period of time that you're not at so as you would have online communication with your supervisor. The only thing around that though is if you are going to be based anywhere else outside of the university. You will also need to fill in quite a detailed form that tells us where you're going to be, what access you're going to have to various different facilities, and also from a risk, risk and health and safety perspective we also like to know that you have sort of plans in place if you were travelling to a more problematic area because a lot of our students are undertaking research that can be in areas of the world where there is ongoing conflict. Okay, so another question here says who is eligible for home student fee rates for UK nationals who have been living overseas for many years for example. So what we would do is we would take you through a fees questionnaire the fees questionnaire is actually, it's actually set by an overarching body so not by any one university and it helps us to to identify which students would be paying UK fees and which students would be paying international fees. It's tied down to a number of different criteria including where you may have lived for the last few years but also linked to areas such as tax and property and things like that and you're you're kind of closer ties or connections to the UK. So what we would do is as soon as we've received your application we would look at the kind of key markers within that application for how we might assess your fees and then we would send you out a fees questionnaire, just so that we make sure we have all of the relevant information in case actually there is another reason why you'd be cast as either a home fee payer or an international fee pair. Okay so another one is that. Oh I think this is again related to if you've noted that you've applied to lots of different institutions as I say that will not affect your application to us we look at your application to us. And in and of itself we don't really factor in where you've applied it's just again for a more statistical analysis it's good for us to know where our students are also applying to and where we may want to build further networks in the future. Okay so please can you tell us a bit more about the scholarships and what sort of success rates so our students had been securing these so we are actually given a number of scholarships to give out each year so it's not necessarily that you are applying to a wider number of scholarships that's open to all institutions we actually would have bid for and one funding from various different external bodies. It's more around the actual piece of research that you're doing because it's not about necessarily. It would would or would not fund so our student it's more it's more about whether it fits the parameters of the scholarship itself so when we're given the funding through Chase, they are looking for it to be spent in a certain way, and equally so when we get other scholarships coming through through donor donor providers again sometimes they want it to be going to particular areas of study or particular challenges or particular kind of subject so that's really kind of what it's about. So if you do go on our website it will have extensive information on there within the next kind of 10 days or so about each of the scholarships and how you apply to them and then also you can contact particular academic staff members who will be able to give you even more detail on that So we have been able to fund quite a number of students through our various different external scholarships and we're very we're very proud of the external scholarships that we have been able to to be awarded and also fun to our students and we do look to give all of them away in any given year we we don't really like to have any leftover scholarships so we would look to try and give them out as fairly and as quickly to students as possible. By when should we apply to be considered for Chase funding so to be honest with you, the best thing to do is to apply as early as possible. Because the earlier you apply the more access you're going to have to various different scholarships and the scholarships do all have different deadlines. But we also you also need to bear in mind that an application can take up to eight weeks to review. So obviously the later you apply just by applying doesn't mean that you can gain access to the scholarships we need to have actually reviewed that application and be fairly certain that we are going to to admit you onto the program so to be honest with you the earlier you can apply for a research program the better and also because you will find that through that application process that you may well change your piece of research or adapt it slightly so the early you can do that the better it will be for you. We've got a question here says does back back alum get discounts and I believe there is a University of London discount. If you go to our fees pages, you should be able to see that so I believe there is an overarching University of London discount of which back back would fall into. But please do check our website for more detail on that. I'm looking to plan ahead for someone with only a bachelor's degree, one that may be unrelated to my desired field of research. Could you advise which master's degree programs are best suited for PhD in creative arts. I mean, it's quite a wide ranging area, it would be, I would say anything within our school of arts depending on what area of arts you're looking at, but also within our center of global media and communication. I believe within our school of history would also cover that, or if you are looking at more area studies if you are focusing on a particular area of the world then you could look at our Japanese studies programs are Chinese studies programs are Korean studies programs or any of our languages and cultures programs or kind of post colonial programs as well so it really does depend. What I would say is all of our master's programs are listed on the website and have a really good overview to them so have a look at those and then also over the next couple of months we will be listing up a lot of content, which is like kind of webinars led by each of our academic departments talking about their programs, taste the lectures we do have open days as well, both online and in person so you can basically I think through through accessing all of those you'll have a better understanding of which program you might want to apply to and how it would be suited to what you want to do in the next year what you want to do in the next few years and also what you might want to do longer term. I'm going to try and get through as many of these questions as I can. I've got another question here that says I'm looking for a post collateral program do I need to follow up, follow the same applying method, yes, yeah, same applying method for you, yes. And then I was wondering if students with pre settled settled status would be considered as home or overseas students for fees so it normally means that you would be considered as home but we would also send you out the fees questionnaire just to double check that. So what are the part time fees so yes, Greg if you go to the fees page of our website I've given the fees as the, the full year fees if you were doing it full time but on our website does break it down if you wanted to do it part time so if you have a look at the fees page of our website you will be able to find that so if you just type into. If you type in research fees and so as you'll find that on our website. Do all PA dual and fill PhD courses require in person presence for one year, particularly if the candidate is already based in the field where they're doing the field work. Ideally we do need all candidates to be with us for year one because that's really the year in which case you're building that relationship with your academic supervisor. That's really the planning year so it allows us to make sure that you would have access to the right research and methodology kind of skills workshops and also that it allows you to access the postgraduate taught modules that would be allocated or not allocated would be aligned with your piece of research so it's important that you be based with us for the first year. However, it might be that you want to contact academic members of staff to discuss that in more detail and see if there could be any allowances there but we normally do need it for the first year. So having a second or third supervisor from an external institution and how would it work if we were applying to another blooms free college but wanted a second supervisor at so as so the if you are wanting a second supervisor at so as it would depend on whether that supervisor had the remit to be able to take you on as we would prioritize students who are applying directly to us. So if they are already involved in a research center at the other blooms free college that you're planning to apply to, then you might well find that that is easier. If you are studying with us and you want a second or third supervisor from an external institution we are fine with that on our end it's just that you would need to make sure that they are willing to supervise you on their end. We just want to know in relation to that kind of what what expertise are they bringing alongside that for you but we aren't opposed to it in any way at all. The only other thing you might want to look at is in some cases with some other institutions there would be something related to the intellectual property rights in relation to any supervision so you might just want to think about that. I took part in a distance MSc at so as would it also be possible to take a PhD at either a hybrid or a distance module so again you can do a PhD where you're with us for the first year and then possibly in the second and third year you are external to us and that is agreed to by the academic supervisor and also in line with whether you would have access to the right facilities. As I say we do have a number of students who spend a good amount of time doing field work that doesn't always constitute two years but it can constitute a year or slightly more. So again it would be worked out by the academic department so the best thing is to contact them in the first instance but normally it would require you to spend your first year with us. So is there a residency requirement for full time PhD students, i.e. can students spend part of the year overseas. You can spend part of the year overseas if you're doing field work and arguably you could probably do it overseas if you had that prior requirement with the academic member of staff but in the first year we would normally look for you to be based in the UK and so as in terms of that first grounding year. I can probably get through another five or so questions I'll try and see what maybe we have a couple of the same questions and I'll see. I wanted to do a research type masters before embarking on a PhD, is there a way to get some advice on which one would be best. Yeah, so you can look at the various different masters that we have within our portfolio programs. I mean the best one is going to be one that's the most allied to your program, but also maybe gives you some exposure you don't already have. Another way is that we have research masters at SOAS but all of our masters at SOAS have a research component to them. So all of our students would really be doing a dissertation or research project as part of their masters so it doesn't necessarily tie you to doing an MREZ you could be doing an MA or an MSc as well. We offer co supervision with universities in other countries. So I mean, technically the visiting research students are, that is again usually with students not in the UK, but we can also look at whether we are able to provide arrangements with other universities sometimes it would be through contacts that we have sometimes it's with a contact that a student has, what we would just need to work out. In that case again is whether the student had the right access to the right facilities and the right access to that supervisor and also what was expected on that universities or that institutions and front in terms of the ownership of the PhD. One of the students says, I applied to SOAS University London for Economics but the problem is the supervisor unavailable they gave. Okay, so if you if you are applying to us and you've tried to get an academic reference and you haven't been able to. There is some instances where we can look at that if if you know, sometimes it will be the academic staff have moved on from one institution to another and you no longer have their contact details. So we're able to look into that what we do want is students to at least have tried to get a reference. If you have any work references as well that would be related to the area of research that you're looking to do we could also look at those as well. But what I would suggest to do is just write in an email to our admissions team for the research and explain that you've tried to get the academic references but haven't been able to source them. So how does it work with the MPhil upgrade to PhD. So basically with the MPhil the MPhil is a two year program so it's really for I would say students who aren't sure yet whether they want to commit to the full PhD program. So once you've completed the MPhil if both you and your supervisor thought that this it would could should continue on to a full PhD, then we can upgrade you in your third year to a PhD, and then you do another year with a six months writing up. Do you need to inform the supervisor about the two supervisors that have been contacted. It's fine for you to say I've contacted more than one supervisor and it's fine for you to give the other person out that's not a problem I don't think any of our academics, particularly worry about that. What they're just worried about is whether they are the right supervisor for you but also would have the right time for you and they, you may well find that if you write out to one supervisor and they say we unfortunately can't supervise you, they may well give you the contact details of another, and you might have contacted them so we're not particularly worried about that. If I've completed my last degree in the UK do I still need to provide an English language certificate that will depend on when you when you completed your last degree, because the English language provision we have will depend on if you've been in an English language more recently. So I would say if you have completed that in the last four years it won't be a problem if you completed that more than four years ago and you've been in a non English speaking environment then we may well ask you to take a English language test. Can I apply for more than one application for PhD that relevant to economics. Well you'd be making the one PhD application but then you could look at different supervisors within different departments so it's still the one application but you can just note that you've approached different supervisors. Again, this is the same kind of question and if it's the same research piece but it's across different departments, you can just say that you have reached out to different supervisors in different departments. If I've completed my postgraduate but don't have related work experience how does this affect your application. It won't necessarily affect your application we just want to be, we just want to recognize where some students might have had more academic pathways and other students might have had more non academic pathways we do value both of those so it won't hurt you to have not had that but if you do have that and you maybe don't have a strong and academic background that's where that would come into it. How soon can we register and when will we get the acceptance so basically as soon as you've put your application into us and we reviewed that and we've made the unconditional offer. We will then send you a confirmation of acceptance of studies if you are an international student or if you're not will just send you a confirmation that you have a place with us then you can actually correspond with your academic supervisor from that point. And then we do have a formal enrollment that starts closer to July August of when you're going to come in. So this is probably going to be the last two questions I'm afraid. So the other questions are, can we get ourselves an external examiner. You, you could, you could contact an external examiner but the external examiner is that would actually look at reviewing your piece of work would not be picked by you. It would be picked by the institution because there needs to be a distance between the student and the external panel. And then I think I've already answered this one it's about pre settled status that's fine I'll go through that one. And again this is asking how many programs can I apply to any one time. We normally suggest just making the one application but it could be that you have multiple supervisors that you've approached. So the question that says is there continue continuity between MA and PhD degrees, I could any of the modules taken in an MA MSC contribute towards the PhD. It won't contribute to what the PhD is such but it will it will give you exposure and more expertise and more knowledge to your PhD piece of research. Okay, so very last one now and then I'm sure all of you also have very busy days so. So the question of if I'm already in a master's program now I'm from a final year of masters, and you'll be finishing in 2023. Can you apply to the PhD program. Yes you can apply if you have any up to date transcripts. You can put those in if you don't have any up to date transcripts then you can just put in your existing transcripts in your previous programs and then just let us know that you are taking another program and that your results will be coming out in the summer. So actually the deadlines for 2023. They were the, let me go back on the slides and just quickly get that back up for you. So if you can see this here so the September entry applications it's the 15th of June. Can you contact more than one supervisor at the same department. Yes you can. And do we need to get published some research papers in international journals. No you don't have to have it published but it would be. It would make you a stronger candidate possibly. Can I apply to teach so that would be through our various different scholarship arrangements but also there may be some opportunities to be involved in teaching like activities throughout the additional events that we run through all our research centers and departments. So if you wrote to potential supervisor and got no response. If you wrote to supervisor and got no response. Then what you can do is write into our study at so asked AC UK and we can chase that up for you. It may be that that particular supervisor is on research leave at the moment. So it might not be that they don't have access to internet at this time. So I've answered everybody's questions so thank you all for coming along to this session I hope it was helpful. Sorry to have kept you about 10 minutes over. And we will send out the recording of this session. So thank you all again for attending.