Graduate students considering a PhD in Law are encouraged to come to a Postgraduate Research Funding Open Day at Kent Law School on Wednesday 30 November.
The event, which runs from 11am to 4pm, will cover topics such as how to write a good proposal, how to find a supervisor, and how to apply for scholarships and funding. We’ll explain our own admissions system, introduce you to potential Law School supervisors, give you a free lunch, and give you feedback on your proposal.
Kent Law School is ranked 8th in the UK for Research Intensity in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) and is ranked as a top 20 UK law school in three of the major league tables for Law.
Co-Director of Postgraduate Research at Kent Law School, Dr Emily Grabham, said: ‘Kent Law School enjoys a pluralistic intellectual environment for research, in which traditional and critical legal scholarship, theoretical and empirical work, and interdisciplinary studies all flourish. We particularly welcome research proposals in socio-legal studies, law and the humanities, and critical legal studies. Every year, we offer several scholarships funded by the Law School, the University of Kent, the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), amongst others.’
Places for the Open Day are limited to 25; to apply for one of these places, please send an email to klspgfunding@kent.ac.uk including your name, address, and any institutional affiliation along with:
- A draft research proposal (see below*)
- A maximum one page CV
- A list of up to two academics at Kent Law School whom you have already contacted with a view to applying for a PhD.
The deadline for receipt of applications is 4pm, Monday 14 November 2016.
*Draft research proposal: At this stage, we are looking for a maximum 700 word draft proposal. Don’t feel you need to submit the full 700 words – aim for clarity and be honest about what you don’t yet know (that’s the point of the Open Day). For further guidance, please see our tips on writing a research proposal.
Your draft research proposal should be written in English and include:
- A draft title
- A short statement of your research topic, why it matters, and how it advances current academic knowledge
- A section about what other people have written in this area. For example, if your PhD is going to focus on feminist perspectives on abortion law, you would need to show that you have done some reading in this area and can identify the key themes in this work. This will also help you show how your own project might contribute to ongoing debates
- An explanation of how you are going to do your research – for example, are you going to do a case law analysis? Are you going to interview people on their own experience of the law? This section can include a summary of what you don’t know yet – for example, you might wish to understand a particular area of immigration law but you don’t yet know which methods would be best. For this research proposal, you would list the methods that you think you will use and why, but you would also list any questions you have about these methods
- A personal section, including: how you came to be interested in this research topic and why; what experience you have had in this area, including academic study or career experience; what areas of your PhD application you feel confident and less confident about and why; how you hope to finance your PhD (including via a scholarship if relevant).