 your PhD so ask what facilities you have open to you, what subject areas we offer you within our PhD programs and so on and so forth and then I'm actually going to talk in more detail about how you actually apply to a PhD program and what we're looking for when we're looking at the PhD applications and then also give you a good timeline for what that looks like, talk about some funding options and then as I say we'll open up the questions for you. So in terms of why you might want to think about studying at SOAS University of London for your PhD is we are located in the heart of London, we're a global top 50 university for the arts and humanities, we have world-class facilities, leading academics who are practitioners in the field, small class sizes and what that means for you as a PhD student is one, we do limit how many PhD students our supervisors can take on in any given year so that means that you know that you're going to have dedicated time with your supervisor and also in terms of classes as a PhD student you don't formally take classes in that you wouldn't have like a weekly lecture and seminar each week that pertains to your PhD because it's a research piece, however in the first couple of weeks that you're with us your supervisor will go through your particular piece of research and they will talk to you about classes that we do have modules within our postgraduate talk programs that they think are relevant to you and that you then might want to audit so they do kind of allow you to do that and that's where again these small class sizes come into effect. We also have very flexible and interdisciplinary degrees which again plays into that same aspect of if you are doing a piece of research that happens to fall over a few different departments you will have a main supervisor who is there to help you throughout your time but it may be that you also interact with a number of our other academics in different departments or in different research centres that are still pivotal to your particular piece of research and again with the classes that they recommend for you it doesn't always have to be within the department in which you're taking your PhD in it could be a related degree and with SOAS we do believe that all of our areas are interrelated and interconnected with each other and that's kind of one of the benefits of coming to a smaller more focused more specialised university and then we do have a very diverse and international student population which also feeds into your experience at SOAS. In terms of why you might want to think about studying your PhD at SOAS again there's a lot that we offer you in terms of your studies and at SOAS we don't just see you as a PhD student who's coming in to do a particular piece of research we see you as joining our research community and also a research community that's across the world and that you will play a vital role in developing a vibrant and intellectual culture and from that you will also benefit from world-class facilities and we've listed the main ones here for you so we do have a very comprehensive programme of research training skills development it's fully recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council we have a highly experienced and active research staff who will be your supervisors and they will be doing their own research alongside that as well we have an integrated training programme and a dedicated careers advisory service which is accessible for all of our students especially our research students we have research partnerships with Chase and the Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network which enables you to access training at other institutions and build your research networks we have opportunities for you to publish your work through our Student Lead Journal and this will also allow you some opportunities for funding to present your work at conferences and complete a period of overseas fieldwork if you want to do that and of course if that's pivotal to your piece of research we also have access to the Outstanding SOAS Library which is one of five research libraries within the UK and also the Research Students Association which is a highly active community of research students who organise a lot of social and academic events and who also advocate for the needs of research students in terms of which subject to areas we cover we do have quite a vast range they are all in the social sciences and the humanities I won't go through them all here but we've listed them all for you to have a look at and as we say we normally have a number of students who might be doing a research degree across a few different areas for instance we have our Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies which is actually a centre which is made up of the Anthropology and Sociology Department and also the Development Studies Department and also has some links to the Economics Department and Gender Studies so as you'll see there are lots of things that come into play and it might be that you are actually doing a piece of research that goes across a number of different departments and all of these areas will have research within them it's a case of having a look through seeing what our particular department kind of areas of specialism are looking at who the academic staff are looking at what they teach on what they've published themselves and also possibly other work that they've done in and around academia because a number of our staff are actually practitioners in the field as well so as well as teaching on academic programmes they also hold other posts such as working on various different policy panels working with various different governments so it's important to have a look at who the academic staff are and what their focus is in the department. In terms of the research training provision we do as I say offer a very very strong research training provision and this falls over a number of different areas so when you're pursuing your PhD it is about producing that thesis it is about having a scholarly specialism but it's also about becoming a competent researcher at the end of it and so as part of that we're committed to helping you with that so within our doctoral school we will run a number of different courses and workshops that are specifically for research students so this will include 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 what we call MOOCs which are massive open online courses and within that we also have one called understanding research methods this course was developed jointly by SOAS and the University of London and it was also nominated for the Guardian University Award and you can actually already take that MOOC if you want to through our MOOC page on our website which is just www.soas.ac.uk forward slash MOOC and you'll be able to see those and we also do have one-to-one consultations by department with the doctoral school. So in terms of the other areas we do also have the Careers Advisory Service which has one-to-one 30-minute consultations which can look at career planning, CVs, applications and mock interviews. We also have the PGR workshops which include 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. We have events that are run particularly for our doctoral students such as our academic careers day and our research outside of academic and other PhD areas events as well and then we also have our SOAS careers which are for all of our students no matter which programs they're in and those are run with employers and alumni. We also have our former learning and teaching development department who will look at professional development in higher education which is accredited. We also run a number of study skills workshops which are open to all students and those again would include things like reading and note-taking, avoiding plagiarism, referencing issues and critical thinking and I think that's really important particularly if you are coming from a different educational background so say you're coming from another country the referencing may be very different to what you're used to so again it's really key to have those skill sets and then again if you are an international student and in particular if you're coming from a background where you not from an English language background we also do have our in-sessional academic English support which is at all levels and free of charge and that again includes things like research reading, preparing and writing dissertations, grammar improvement and seminar skills and arguably even if you are a student whose native language is English but you think you would like a little bit more help in those areas you can also access that. So then we have the library and the IT facilities and this is just to really give you an idea of the scope of what we offer within our library as a national research library so in terms of that library we have subject librarians and these are available to all our research students and you're encouraged to go to the subject librarians and have one-to-one training sessions but also liais with them throughout the year. They are amazing at finding different text and resources for you that you probably wouldn't be able to find on your own particularly in the last two years with COVID we have found that all of our students not just our research students have leaned greatly on our subject librarians where maybe coming into campus has been an issue or maybe where they want to use more kind of online journals. We also have the interlibrary loans and access to other libraries so the interlibrary loans are from the British Library and they are free for all of our postgraduate students and you also have access to and borrow books from 160 different academic libraries under the access scheme so you'll be able to find more details of that on our website. In terms of e-books and e-journals the library provides access to over 100,000 e-books and 40,000 e-journals. We have specialist databases the library provides you with access to 70 plus specialist databases which include bibliographies, abstracts, indexes for literature searching, legal databases, financial databases, news databases so really anything you need and we also have a number of resources in different languages in particular Chinese, Japanese and Korean. We have the archives and the special collections and these are unique collection of archives manuscripts and rare books from Africa Asia and the Middle East and they are accessible in the special collections reading room on our level F and I should say that we have the largest collection of East Asian literature and one of the largest collections in the world of Middle Eastern literature within our library which obviously again feeds back to the areas in which we focus in on and then lastly we have a lot of training sessions which run on a number of different areas but include things like referencing manual management tools which you would use both in our library but also maybe in other libraries afterwards. So then we come on to the Bloomsbury postgraduate skills network which again offers a wide range of training courses for research students across different institutions and the participating institutions are all listed here and then we also have the doctoral training centres and other opportunities as part of other networks that we have as well and those will all be listed on the website as well so it basically shows you that though you are a research student at SOAS you have a lot of links and a lot of networks both within the UK particularly in London but also across the world. So in terms of ways in which you can come to us there are a few different ways in which you can come to us and most students would come as a full PhD student but you also might want to think about coming as a visiting research student so this is designed for students who are already embarking on doctoral research in their home university but wish to take advantage of our unique resources so applicants wishing to undertake this would need to register for this and normally you need to have some backing from your home institution to show that they are happy for you to come to another institution for a period of time and you will not be formally assessed through your work with us and will not be awarded a qualification this is more to allow you to complete that dissertation complete that thesis back with your home institution but just give you more access and more exposure to different academics around the world. So you can enroll for one term or two terms or three terms and it's just one academic year only and it's the same application process to our and fill on our PhD programs and you can find that all on our website. In terms of entry requirements for the full PhD programs our minimum entry requirements for applying for a PhD would be a good UK master's degree or an equivalent overseas degree so you will find on our website that we do have country specific entry requirements which will allow you to see if your particular degree if you're studying outside of the UK does meet our entry requirements and in some cases you would need prior knowledge of a language depending on what you're planning to do your studies in and some departments might also have specific entry requirements on their program which will be listed on their department pages at the SOAS website so I would say examples of this would be if you were doing a PhD program within our economics department they will need you to have some economics background in order to be able to do that and again if you were going to come into some of our finance programs again there would be thought that you would have that relevant background but again we're looking for a relevant background in all of the students who come to us as a PhD student. So in terms of what you need to include in your application the application is only considered once the following has been provided so you do need to provide all of this for it to be considered until you've provided this document we will have your application and it will sit there until we've seen all of this so it is important to make sure that you get as much information through to us at the time of applying or follow up with relevant information. So in terms of the information you'd need we need the formal application form which can be found on our website a supporting personal statement so why you want to do this particular piece of research why you want to do it at SOAS what skill sets and background do you think you have that make you suitable for this and really to showcase how much you know about SOAS as opposed to necessarily how much you know about the subject area that you're taking I mean obviously we want you to have the relevant background but we don't expect you to know everything about a particular piece of research you're doing because you haven't completed it yet and research is an ongoing thing that does change as you do it but we need to see kind of your commitment and your interest in that and really how you think SOAS can help you with that. We also look for an up-to-date CV or resume so again if you've done any research before you've been a research assistant you've worked in research centres or within your studies you were part of a research group again it's important to list that as well as any non-academic background that you might have that you think is suitable. Then we do need a research proposal so in the UK we do look at students to drive their own research to have their own research proposal and to have thought about this in quite some depth in other countries around the world in some cases you would be admitted to a research group and possibly given a research area that you would undertake that isn't the case in the UK you have to propose your research yourself and then we do need full academic transcripts of your college and university studies to date with official translations from your institution or a recognised translator if they're not in English and with this I should say this as is exactly that it's your full transcripts to date if you are still completing a programme and so you don't have your final transcripts you just need to provide what you do have and then the offer would be made as on a conditional basis with your final transcripts hitting a certain level. In terms of copies of your degree certificates again we would need those to be official translations from your institution or recognised translator if not in English and again we'd only need the copies of the degree certificates for the programmes that you've actually completed we will ask you for them afterwards if you are complete if you're still in the process of completing it and we do bear in mind that some institutions might produce their degrees certificates a little bit later so in some cases we also accept provisional certs we also then would need evidence of your English language proficiency or an intent to take a recognised English language test so again if you were thinking I want to complete my studies first and then I'll do my English language test that's fine you just have to let us know and that would be part of the conditional offer that we make to you and then we need one reference but this must be confidentially submitted by your referee so whoever you nominate must send that into us confidentially rather than through you and the doctoral school team will check that all the required documents have been provided and that your reference is acceptable and meets our entry requirements in the initial assessment and then it will go to an academic for their review as well so again when you're looking at studying a PhD with us it is really important that you do that front work in terms of researching who our staff are and how they might be the right person to supervise you and it's often quite good to have that initial conversation with them through email all of our academic staff have profiles on the website and all of their email addresses are listed on the website so it's about reaching out to them and the first stage I would say reach out to them with your general idea it doesn't have to be your full research proposal to kind of get that initial conversation going with them but you will need that final research proposal for the actual application that you put into us. So in terms of the personal statement as I said this should explain your motivation to applying to SOAS in your chosen program it's useful here for you to outline your skills and experiences that were relevant to you at your time at SOAS and how you perform on a doctoral researcher at the school and it should be a minimum length of one page. In terms of the research proposal this must be a minimum of 1,000 to 2,000 words and include an outline of your proposed research topic, an outline of your proposed research method, an outline of contingency plan and include a one page preliminary bibliography of the source materials you intend to use. It's also often beneficial for you to make contact as I say with the academic staff who shares your interest prior to submitting your application they will be able to give you again some tips, some different resources that they think you might look into and one thing I would say with this is that in the UK our academic community is very much a close knit community so you may find that the academic you reach out to at SOAS says I actually don't think I would be the right person for you. It could be that they are already supervising a number of other students it could be that their particular focus isn't quite the same as yours and they may suggest somebody else at SOAS who would be better placed or they may also suggest somebody who's not at SOAS who's at another institution within the UK because all of our academics do tend to know each other quite well and do work across different universities in various different research groups. So in terms of the timeline applications are open already and then in terms of when you make applications they're open from now and they will stay open until the 15th of June 2022. We do have January entry applications and so obviously they do have a shorter deadline but they would have already been put in at this point and then we always have April entry applications so it depends when you're looking to come into us and some of them are for the visiting research students only so the main one is the top one for all PhD students and then the standard response time for a complete application is about five to eight weeks but during that five to eight weeks you would also be having some communication with the academic staff that you've already reached out to so it's not sort of five to eight weeks where you don't hear anything it's five to eight weeks where we expect you to be having some conversations with academic staff as well and then in terms of the offer that you're made again that will depend on the information that you have submitted or if you have already completed your programme that you're currently undertaking if you haven't completed the programme that you're currently undertaking that offer will be conditional and will be based on when you advise us that you are getting your final results if you have already finished all of your qualifications then that should be an unconditional unless you have an English language requirement which would obviously mean that it is conditional until you get that and then once you are unconditional and once you have a firm status with us you can begin the CAS and visa process for international students and that is an online form which you can request six months before the programme start date and it takes about five to ten working days for us to turn around those requests sometimes it is a little bit longer in the busier periods so particularly once we reach kind of august time is quite busy at that time so if you can avoid putting your application or your request for your CAS in at that point I would do I would try and put it in early if you can then just quickly to touch on English language requirements we do have English language requirements for our postgraduate programmes and we have listed them all here as I say you could have taken your English language test when you apply or you could have an intent to take it later it's just obviously good for you to bear in mind any turnaround times with that and any offer times and visa processing times the incessional options we run are free of charge and we will indicate to you if we feel that you need those incessional options and again that is all listed on our website but again if you feel even if you meet our requirements but you think you want just a little bit more help you can have access to that and then we do run a four and eight week pre-session or English language course which you can again take if you don't meet any of our top line entry requirements into the PhD programme so again let's just talk a little bit more about the courses that we offer as well as having our four and eight week courses we do have longer courses so if you are thinking a bit that you need more help we do have our English language and academic studies programmes which can run for around kind of three months or so but obviously you'll need to think about the turnaround time in order to do that and it might be best to sit an English language test first to see what your English language level is a lot of students worry about their English language level and then take a test and it actually comes out better than they think so it's a really good idea to try and do that to know where you are as you're applying and which of our in-sessional pre-sessional programmes might be of help to you as well. So in terms of tuition fees these are the fees that we have currently so for our home students it's four thousand four hundred and eighty six for our overseas students it will be twenty thousand in terms of funding our home students are eligible for non-means tested loans from student finance and for our overseas students we have a number of different loans that we work with in terms of overseas loans providers and that can all be found on our website as well. In terms of funding a funding a PhD and what scholarships you might have open to you PhDs in the UK are mostly self-funded so that is a difference to other countries around the world and I know that is something students do worry about but unfortunately that is the case in the UK in that most of our PhD students are self-funded however there are various different grants that you could look at taking and so we've listed them all on our website and you can go to this link for more details and also we do have a number of external funding opportunities for international students such as the Commonwealth scholarships and the Marshall scholarships the Wellcome Trust and there's various different ministries and government funding that our students take advantage of as well. So lastly we move on to our open events and these are really great events if you can join them just to find out a bit more about the academics about the departments and about the university itself so we do have a postgraduate open evening happening on the 17th of November which will be in person and then we also have an online open day on the 24th of November we'll have another one on the 23rd of February in person and then we also have our Global Challenges Forum which isn't so much an open day but it's a really great event and it takes all of our departments together and we talk about key issues affecting the world today so again it can be a really great way to experience more of what SOAS has to offer in terms of its academics its kind of impact on the world around us and then lastly we do have a postgraduate taster day which will be on the 16th of March and online and that will be open to anybody who's already applied to us and so you can register your interest for these events on our website and find out more details on the website too. So then I'll just open up to any questions that you might have I can see that there's a couple of comments in the chat box so maybe we can have a look at those now and I'll stop sharing my screen just so I can see all of you because at the moment I can't see anybody so might be more helpful that way. So I hope that that wasn't too much information thrown at you so it is a big area to cover and there's lots to think about when you're thinking about doing a PhD anywhere whether it be in the UK or more internationally and then also at an individual university so that is something to consider so I'm just going to go through the questions that have been put in the chat now and see if see what we can see. So is it possible to pursue a part-time PhD remotely in case someone is unable to be in London full-time? There are some opportunities to study a PhD remotely however we would expect students to come to the UK for a period of time usually at the start of your PhD so that those initial discussions that you're having with the academic supervisors are there but also if you need to take any of the initial classes that we think would be relevant to your to your particular piece of research you can also undertake those and also to really fully engage with a number of the training and development programs we have. We do have some students who start their PhD with us in person but then may spend a period of time actually overseas or doing field work and so during that time they might liaise with their supervisor on a more remote basis and via email and via zoom and via all of these great accessible options that we have but we would say that you need to have thought about being based at SOAS for a good amount of time and so it might mean being there at the start and then coming back at the end when you're writing up and what we'd also want to know is if you weren't going to be based with us what access would you have to various different facilities that you would need so again what access do you have to libraries what access do you have to research centres you know is there another institution that possibly you might be doing your PhD with so these are all things that we would need to consider when looking at whether you can be remote for your research. Okay and then I can see that we've got you pursuing a distance learning MSc at SOAS at the moment will this be considered the same merit as an on-campus MRes degree. So yes in for SOAS any of the programmes that we teach online are fully recognised as the same level as an MA, MSc in person. The difference with the online programmes as opposed to remote learning or as opposed to being on campus is really just the pedagogy in which we teach and the access and resources in which you have and we've designed them very very very carefully over the years we have over 20 years experience in offering online programmes and the online programmes that we offer are very very well regarded in fact a number of the online programmes that we offer were born out of requests from various different government bodies various different leaders in industry saying we'd actually like to provide our staff with more areas for development and we'd like you to help us with that so they are very rigorous degrees your degree transcript won't even say distance learning on it but yeah we believe at SOAS that they are the same level. Obviously it depends where you've studied at if you're not at SOAS I know you are but if others are out there and they studied an online degree it's not as SOAS we just look at where you've taken your online degree and what the options are there but it is a growing area and I think through COVID we've seen that you know I would say a number of government bodies previously previous to COVID hadn't recognised all online programmes they've recognised particular ones that they know a lot about but they hadn't recognised all of them I think coming out of COVID if there's anything good to be taken out of COVID it would be that online learning does have a little bit more of a you know a place I think now because we've seen how so many universities across the world had to switch to that area and they're still providing very very strong programmes for their students so I hope that answers that. Then there's another question says I'm about to finish my masters I don't really like my research topic here I have not considered my PhD topic yet what should I do so in order to undertake a PhD programme in the UK and particularly at SOAS you are going to need to think about forming that research idea and so you really are going to need to put some thought into it I mean I would go back through your programme I mean it might be that your current dissertation topic that you set yourself on isn't what you want to do long term maybe you found other areas that have come up during your studies that you think you have a vested interest in or maybe just you're affected by what's happening in the world at the moment so it would be important to think about a PhD topic that you are committed to and that you do have a vested interest in it's going to be at least three years of your life in terms of this study so it needs to be something you're committed to so I would say to try and just explore all of the areas that you've currently studied and that you think you found interesting and maybe go on to lots of different websites like go on to our website and you can see all of the classes that we teach it usually gives you a description of each of the modules and so those would be called classes in other places that we offer and it kind of really gives you an in-depth description of that and some reading resources so it's really just going to be a case of reading around and really trying to find something that you do have that vested interest in and so it might be that you need to take a year out as well from your studies so after you finish your masters it might mean that you do have to take a year and maybe work in a few different fields and see kind of what interests you rather than coming directly on to a PhD program but yeah all I'd say is you need to have you know you really need to be committed to it and it's not a problem to change from what you looked at in your masters into what you're looking at in your PhD as long as there's still a connection there and as long as we feel that you would still have the right background knowledge for that so then just moving on to the next questions we've got um how much input can a potential supervisor have on shaping your research idea um so they can have a lot of input so it might be that you come with a very formulated idea and you know exactly what you want to do and you've thought about how you're going to do it you've thought about your research methods you've thought about the ethical considerations you've thought about you've done a lot of reading about other research that's been done that's kind of on the periphery to your so you're not basically repeating research that's already been done you're adding something new you're you know you're you're really providing a new perspective on something but you've done that kind of read around and so then what they do is they might say okay well based on what you've said and based on the reading you've done you might also want to consider this person or this research centre and they will help you to shape that but the initial application you do have to have a research proposal but i'm going to be honest with you now if most of our phd students looked back on their initial research proposal that they put in when they applied to us at the end of their research piece there will be many many many differences within that and during the time that you're with us there will be very many kind of changes to your research that happens and that those changes will happen as other research becomes available and gets published it will happen as issues around the world change because in terms of so as our our focus is on what is happening here and now as well as what's happened historically so that is going to change and they are going to help you to shape that idea they won't ever turn the page for you so we do have an independent learning style and they won't ever give you the answers but they're definitely going to you know question you a lot and prod you and send you in lots of different directions that they think is only going to help to make your application and make your end phd stronger and in the uk when you take a phd and you do have an external process for vetting your phd so they also want to help you with that because they want to make sure that whatever you do in your phd is going to stand up to that kind of vetting process okay if you're currently undertaking your second master's program can you gain an unconditional offer based on the results of your first master's program yes you can if if that is in the relevant area if you are taking a second master's program that's more relevant to the subject you'll take we might also say we'd also like to see a final grade of this but it's not always necessary so yeah it can be taken from your first master's and your second master's can just be there to again raise your profile can we directly contact the teacher of our respective department before applying so yes i think i covered that in the presentation but yes i we would suggest you do that so all of our departments will have profiles for all of our academic staff and it gives you a really in-depth understanding of who they are what they teach what they've researched on where they've worked and most importantly their email addresses so it's a good idea to write out to them i find we do get a number of what we call cold phd applications where a phd student hasn't spoken to an academic supervisor and it's not to say that those phd applications don't go anywhere some students do end up coming to us from those but then there's a lot more work that happens in the interim so it actually takes longer to process those applications because we first need to establish who where what when and why so if you can do that first and i think you know if you're coming on to a research degree it's good to do the research in a way even though that might sound kind of cheesy to say but you know i do you think it's about making sure that we have the right background for you i mean we have excellent departments but it's not to say that they will cover every single area of every single subject and so it's it's worthwhile doing that initial research and as i said they may well send you to somebody else that's so asked and say look actually i think this person is much better for you in terms of what they have done before their publications their teaching what they're involved in currently um or it could just be that we don't have anybody in your particular area but we still think that research is really vital to happen and so we send you to somebody else in the uk or possibly elsewhere as well because when you think about research you've got to think about it's a cycle so whatever research you want to do if we can't take on it so as it's not to say that it isn't an important piece of research and it's not to say that it won't actually end up circling background to someone later at so as than doing a related piece of research so that's really important um i'll just take a couple of questions and i think then actually we have a hand raised actually let's go to uh mr staffer if you'd like to raise your question hi kim how are you i'm good thank you oh yeah i'm glad to see you it's been like a year since we had like making like this for post-graduate now for the phd yeah so i finished already my master's degree at service and i'm looking forward for a phd i have like a couple of questions the first one you've mentioned that if you have a research experience you can mention in person a statement but if i don't have like a research experience but like program management in different countries will be the what will be like you know what will it have like at a wealth or like you know something with my application and the second question is about the students ship not the scholarship to have students ship for international students who would like to do their phd at so as and the third one is about how so as will help the students patients students in publishing their articles in high standard journals thank you very much okay great great questions so in terms of um background it doesn't just have to be research experience that you have it can also be any um work experience that you have that's in the relevant areas um so yes include any kind of roles that you've had previously um as i say so us is a university of practitioners in the field as well as academics so we do say that that has as much importance um to a student doing a phd as their research background as well and bear in mind that in doing a master's program and in most cases an undergraduate program in the uk but also possibly elsewhere around the world you will have done a little bit of research within your previous programs as well as part of any sort of dissertations or research projects you would have done and we do include that in there too so do you think about including that in um in terms of the students ships um we do have a um every year we do have students ships which are they are included within our scholarships um but they are for students on research programs um in most cases those would be um fully funded for tuition fees and then um assistance with your cost of living so it might not cover your full cost of living but would cover a kind of a healthy amount towards that each year it does differ on how many of those we give out and they are very very very competitive so by all means I think students should be applying to the studentship um but also to make sure that they thought about maybe some other avenues of funding that they might be able to use so that if you are unsuccessful in the scholarship it doesn't mean that you you don't have anything at the last moment to put in there so I would say to make sure that as well as applying for the studentship that you are thinking about other ways to fund your degree and then lastly with the publications questions so yes in terms of um having your work published um we have lots of different networks that we have at so as some will be at the department level some will be at the academic level so that particular supervisor and some are more um across the whole institution and also with the various different networks in which we work with and you will have seen some of that on the presentation um and as I say we're recording this so I can we'll send the presentation around to everybody which will have all the links so you can explore that um on our pages but I'll also get the links put into um the chat here for you so there's definitely a lot of um there's a lot of assistance with that um and you know our our own reach is very very strong um and so there's a lot that you can do through our channels first and then publish it after that so definitely um it would be something that you should be liaising with the academic staff with throughout your program and also the department with and possibly joining a number of our research centres so your work might also overlap with something that we're doing within our research centre and again through that added um support with them you could get your work into a number of different publications so hopefully that's answered um your questions but thank you for those they were great questions I'll just quickly um let's just scroll through because I think there were a few more questions um that came up so um I think you've said here getting there's a question says getting access to supervisors is always challenging how do you plan on providing the linkage so in terms of um supervisors as they say it's it's worth that initial email that you send out to them in terms of asking them if they would be the right supervisor for you or showing your interest in them um sometimes you do have to send a couple of emails it depends um obviously all of our supervisors are also academic staff teaching on our programs doing their own research um and also looking at the provision that we have for students every year but they are they are they do try and answer their emails as quickly as possible um some of them are are going to be on study leave so it might be that when you've contacted them they're actually planning to be on study leave for that next period so um they may pass it on to another member of the team you can also copy in the academic sorry the admin contacts in each of the um subject areas and they'll be able to follow that up with you um but I definitely think um just emailing out in the first instance is is the main thing and then once you are actually with us so once you're a research student with us um access to your supervisors should not be a problem at all and that is why we limit how many students they can take on in any given year so that you know that you have the appropriate amount of time with them um obviously in the last two years it's been made a little bit more difficult um through COVID so they've been doing more remote um contact with our students but they do set you a plan at the start um and it is different for every student so some student meets with their academic supervisor at least once a week if not more some will meet with them once every two weeks some might meet with them a little bit less than that depending on their own needs um but they will be wanting to have some sort of communication with you on a regular basis so whether it's via emails whether it's via Zoom whether it's via an in person appointment so um I would say once you're in our program very strong um obviously coming into our programs it will depend on what the academic staff is doing um at that particular time and what I also would recommend is it's quite a good idea to try and contact three academic members of staff that you think are related to your area and it's so us again you will probably find that you're more able to find that because all of our subject areas again are interconnected and interrelated with each other so often you'll find that there might be three possible supervisors for you there might be um that you're swayed more to one than the others because of their background but it's important to write out to all of them um and we do sometimes have you know more than one supervisor in fact we we always tend to have more than one supervisor but one tends to be your primary supervisor um so you should be able to have good contact with them um so then there are a few questions about other provisions for phd applicants with families in terms of phd applicants with families um we can help you with your visa application for dependents and we do also have some access to some accommodation which is more of a family accommodation however those are very very um oversubscribed so again it's important to let us know of what you might need early on and it's more likely that you would have private accommodation rather than university accommodation um are there opportunities for phd students to work throughout the university period yes you can work throughout your time with us um as in um UK student you can work the hours that you want to work though we always say to obviously keep in mind that your primary goal would be your phd and ideally we want you to finish that within three years with six months writing up some students do extend over a period of time but we do have to consider that in terms of how many students we're supervising at any one time um so just do have a think about that in terms of your workload um and then as an international student you are allowed to work up to 20 hours per week during term time and full time hours during non-term time but again I would say you know a research is a huge piece of work for you to be undertaking um and you do want to leave yourself um options to take part in all the additional events that happen at SOAS that also might impact on your research so we do a lot of guest lectures book signings um film screenings um networking events um and you would want to make sure that you have time to attend all of those too so I actually say it would be better um particularly for international students to start off with maybe 10 to 15 hours of work per week and then see how they go from there let me see if there are any more questions if we have a research interest can the professors help us frame our research so I think yeah I've gone back through that before but yes they definitely will so I mean any student who comes in particularly those even those who have a really strong idea and those who have like a bit more of an open idea during that application process they'll help you to frame that and they'll help you to kind of hone in on what they think is feasible also in the time frame of the resources that you have but even throughout your PhD they will be there kind of there to support you there to help you in terms of learning about different areas and so do all of the research kind of development and training practices that we have because all of that is there to help you with your particular piece of research but also to help you develop your skill sets more widely as a researcher for what you might want to go on to in the future so do again do we have to be based in London for a PhD I think I've already answered that to a certain extent that we would expect you to be based with us for a period of time and obviously if there's a reason why you wouldn't be with us if you know if there's a need to do fieldwork in a particular region or area or place other than London then of course we would try and help support that as best we can but there was also a need for you to have that kind of time to bed in to your PhD and that time to have access to all of the resources and facilities and if you aren't so as we just need to know how you're going to have resources and access to various different facilities and I think maybe one thing that would kind of also cross over into that area that maybe we haven't touched on to a certain extent at the moment is ethics so at SOAS we do have a very strong policy in terms of ethics of research and that's everything from you know in terms of looking at the overall ethics of your research and the methodology that you're using and who you are researching and who is involved in that and what permissions and access they give you and what safety is there for those people but also your safety so if you are planning on doing fieldwork and you're going somewhere we need to know that risk assessment has been done we need to know that there are you know that you have various different access to help when you need it many of our students are looking at a number of research pieces in areas of conflict I mean it's a very it's a very clear area within our programs and across many of our programs and so with that if they are planning to go to areas where there has been conflict we do need to know that they are going to be safe and secure and so again that's something that kind of factors into whether you're going to be at the campus or away from the campus and where you will be. I think there's been quite a few coming through so we'll get through as many as we can we've probably got another five minutes and then unfortunately we'll have to end the session but I will also try and make sure that all of the questions that are raised in this session that we can come back to you with them at some point as well so let me just have a quick look I think there's a few more that I can probably get to in the time so I think this question about how many seats will there be in cultural literature literary and postcolonial studies so it's not that there's a certain amount of seats in each department it would be that supervisors themselves can only supervise a certain amount of students at any one time and that is as I say just to protect and make sure that you have access to them as much as you need access to them so there's not a quota per department but it's more just about who the academic staff are already supervising from previous years and who they'll be supervising further so the important thing is to get your application in as early as you can and I think that will help you on many respects one obviously because it means that we will get your application earlier and if they maybe haven't suggest to other students to supervise and yours is in line with what they're doing they may say yes to you but also the earlier you put your application in the more that you have time to really understand what facilities what academic staff we have to support you and for us to understand more about the piece of research you want to do and one other aspect of it is that building of communication with your academic supervisor this is three years that you're going to spend of your life and it's a very close relationship that you would need to have with them and sometimes you have just the right academic background and they have just the right academic background but still the communication isn't quite there so the longer the earlier you apply the longer they have to build that communication with you and build that working style with you as you progress through through to actually coming on to your PhD and then in your PhD so yes PhDs are three years in duration with normally six months writing up so it's three years six months but can be extended depending on why you need to extend it and I think the team have been answering a few of your other questions as well so I think we've probably got to think there's one more does the opportunity exist to pursue a part time PhD in collaboration with a company that is not yet I guess working with us I mean you can always do collaborations with outside organizations and we encourage students to build networks through our own resources but also networks that they're able to build themselves I mean that's why we give you a lot of those networking and training sessions so definitely that's possible to do and we do allow part-time PhDs however part-time PhDs are available at the moment for our international students so it would only be our home students who are able to do the part-time PhD and the only other thing to think about with doing a part-time PhD is that obviously in terms of the tuition fees they are lower per year but then you have more years and you're going to have more living costs so I think it's just something to bear in mind with that and also this collaboration you have with an external company or organization how much of that time do you need to dedicate to them and how much commitment do you need to give them so these are all important things to think about so hopefully that's been helpful to you all thank you all for your great questions thank you all for coming along today we will be sending out this recording to you I hope I didn't throw too much information at you at one point and do feel free to come along to our online and in-person if you can come in person events I think you'll learn more about the university that way and you will have access to the academic staff so our academic staff both interact on the virtual open days and also in the in-person open evenings so they normally have a desk where you can go talk to them and chat to them in network and we'll also do panel styles where we'll have a range of different academics from different backgrounds maybe talking to one particular issue or area so definitely I think they are really great for you to access and do go on our website and do kind of as I say unfortunately do the research to do the research so hopefully that's been helpful I thank you all for your time sorry we've run a little bit over and I hope to see you sometime on campus or at any of our events thank you everybody