DOCTORAL DEGREES (PhD's)

The MSc courses also form the compulsory year of coursework and research training for the doctoral programme. All the students intending to study for a PhD within the framework of the Scottish Graduate Programme first take the MSc at The University of Edinburgh (unless they have an equivalent MSc from elsewhere). If they obtain a good pass in the MSc examinations, they then study for a PhD at one of the participating universities. The pooling of resources across the eight department means that a very wide range of research interests can be accommodated.

Studying for a PHD

Those students intending to proceed to a PhD are required to identify the topic of their research during the second half of their coursework year. This is done in consultation with the Directors of the programme. After the MSc they devote up to three years to research towards the preparation and submission of the thesis. Each student has a primary supervisor at whose university the student will enrol for the PhD degree. At this point, the student comes under the PhD regulations of the university which he/she has selected. Each student also has a secondary supervisor, sometimes from a different university, from whom regular advice may be sought. Because of the collaborative nature of the programme, research students have access to a wide range of expertise, and the programme is able to offer supervision in any area of Economics.

PhD Training Sequence

All PhD students benefit from the range of advanced training courses on offer within the SGPE. Recently the SGPE was successful in obtaining ESRC funds to run advanced training courses. Whilst primarily aimed at SGPE PhD students these courses are effectively open to all UK applicants. For full details of the latest ESRC sponsored Research Training Courses run by the SGPE go to http://www.highbrowse.com/sgpe-rdi/