The strength of an applicant’s research proposal is one of the primary ways by which we identify promising candidates. Your proposal should be no more than 1,500 words in length. You should state your research topic as accurately as possible, and should address the following questions in the proposal:
1. What is your general topic?
2. What questions do you want to answer?
3. What is the key literature and its limitations?
4. What are the main hypotheses of the work?
5. What methodology do you intend to use?
6. What are your case studies, if any, and what are your case selection criteria?
MPhil/PhD applications that are received without a research proposal that addresses these questions will not be considered.
Your research proposal must be your own work. We recommend that you proofread your proposal carefully before you upload it, and that you make sure to upload the final corrected version. Please ensure that each page of your research proposal bears your name in a header or footer. Finally, you must stick to the word limit, as the PhD selectors are not required to read documents that exceed the word count.