Statement of Academic Purpose and Research Proposal

Statement of Purpose (MPhil/PhD in Management)

The statement of purpose is your opportunity to describe your academic interests in, understanding of, and suitability for the programme you are applying to.

The statement of purpose should clearly demonstrate your motivations and objectives for applying to the programme. You should highlight your academic strengths and draw on any previous experiences that will strengthen your application.

We are interested to learn about your research experience to date, and how you plan to develop these skills further during your time at LSE and beyond.

You should clearly explain how you envisage studying in the Department will help support your professional and academic development, as well as your long-term academic career plans.

We are keen to understand how you will enhance and contribute to the research community and support our research focused environment within the Department of Management and LSE.

Research Proposal (MPhil/PhD in Management)

Use your research proposal as an opportunity to showcase your research interests to the selectors, and what contributions your ideas will make to the academic field.

The research proposal is an important element of your application as it demonstrates your research and methodology interests, your academic potential, and it also helps the selectors in identifying potential supervisors.

In addition to the guidance given in Supporting Documents, your research proposal should clearly identify and include the following:

• Title: Please clearly state your research question or title of your research at the start of your research proposal.
• Keywords: Please include on the first page of the proposal up to 10 keywords or phrases which accurately reflect the content of your project (e.g., 'digital innovation’, ‘fintech’, 'data privacy', ‘innovation strategy’, 'digital platforms').
• Introduction to the research idea: What is your general topic? What questions do you want to answer? Why do you think these are interesting, and important questions that deserve to be answered? What are the main hypotheses of the work?
• Literature: What is the key literature and its limitations?
• Methodology: What research methods do you intend to use? What are the strengths and limitations of your chosen methodology?
• Conclusion: How will your ideas contribute to the field, and how will this change our understanding of your research topic?
• Bibliography: Please clearly reference any literature you have used in your research proposal.

We understand that as you undertake your study and enhance your research skills during your first year, your initial idea may change, and we therefore do not expect this idea to be fixed but the proposal should clearly demonstrate your research interests.

Statement of Purpose (MRes/PhD in Management programmes)

The statement of purpose is your opportunity to describe your academic interests in, understanding of, and suitability for the programme you are applying to. The statement of purpose should clearly demonstrate your motivations and objectives for applying to the programme. Highlight your academic strengths and draw on any previous experiences that will strengthen your application.

We are interested to learn about your research experience to date, and how you plan to develop these skills further during your time at LSE and beyond.

Clearly explain how you envisage studying in the Department will help support your professional and academic development, as well as your long-term academic career plans.

We are keen to understand how you will enhance and contribute to the research community and support our research focused environment within the Department of Management and LSE.

Research Proposal (MRes/PhD in Management programmes)

For MRes/PhD in Management programmes we require an outline research proposal.

Use your outline research proposal as an opportunity to showcase your research and methodology interests to the selectors.

Your research proposal will play an important role in the evaluation of your application. The selectors will place particular weight on how you are able to tackle a question and propose a viable methodology to solve it.

The outline research proposal demonstrates your academic potential, research interests, and it helps selectors in identifying potential supervisors.

The proposal word limit is 1500 words maximum.

In addition to the guidance given in Supporting Documents, your research proposal should outline and include the following:

• Working Title: Please state your research question or the working title of your research at the start of your research proposal.
• Keywords: Please include on the first page of the proposal up to 10 keywords or phrases which accurately reflect the content of your project (e.g., 'digital innovation’, ‘fintech’, 'identity’, ‘gender’, ’workplace discrimination’, ‘proactivity’, 'digital platforms').
• Introduction to the research idea: What is your general topic? What questions do you want to answer? Why do you think these are interesting and important questions that deserve to be answered? What are the main hypotheses of the work?
• Literature: What is the key literature and its limitations?
• Methodology: What research methods do you intend to use? What are the strengths and limitations of your chosen methodology?
• Conclusion: In what ways will your ideas contribute to the field, and how will this help to change our understanding of your research topic?
• Bibliography: Please clearly reference any literature you have used in your research proposal (not included in the word count).

We understand that as you undertake your study and enhance your research skills during your MRes, your initial idea may change, and we therefore do not expect this idea to be fixed but the outline research proposal should demonstrate your research interests.