Programme specification: MPhil/PhD Law

1. / Awarding Body / LSE
2. / Details of accreditation by a professional/statutory body,
e.g. ESRC; BPS etc / N/A
3. / Name of final award / MPhil/PhD
4. / Programme Title / PhD law
5. / Duration of the course / The normal period of registration is 3-4 years; full time students must complete within four years and part time within 6 years.
6. / Based in the Department/Institute: / Law
7. / Relevant QAA subject benchmark statements (See Subject Benchmark Statements)
8. / UCAS Code / M3ZL
9. / First written/last amended / October 1998 / November 2010
10. / The programme aims to:
  • Tutor students in the requisite skills and competencies to produce a lengthy piece of academic writing to a high standard of academic writing;
  • Develop students ability to produce original research which makes a significant contribution to the literature in their chosen field;
  • Provide students with opportunities to present their work to audiences of peers and to gain experience in responding to feedback;
  • Equip students with the skills necessary to undertake high quality research such as library skills and information retrieval;
  • Make students aware of good practice in Higher Education in relation to submitted work for publication and making job applications.

11. / Programme outcomes: knowledge and understanding; skills and other attributes
  • Demonstrable and deep knowledge of the academic area that students have selected to undertake advanced research in;
  • Understanding of where that work can be positioned in the field and the methodological and theoretical issues which have and could frame knowledge acquisition in the given area;
  • The ability to critique the work of others and provide constructive criticism;
  • The capacity to develop original ideas and to express them in a convincing way;
  • The capacity to garner evidence to support and argument and to assess the credibility of different sorts of evidence;
  • The ability to write coherently and to a high standard;
  • The ability to present complex ideas to an audience of peers and experts in a competent way;
  • Awareness of academic networks relevant to the field of study;
  • Knowledge of good practice in submitting work for publication;
  • Experience of presenting academic papers at workshops or conferences.

12. / Teaching, learning and assessment strategies to enable outcomes to be achieved and demonstrated
Teaching and learning strategies:
Students undertaking the MPhil/PhD are required to undertake training in the Department and the
School. The training programme can be tailored to individual students needs but has compulsory and voluntary components. In addition to progressing with their research, students are expected to take the listed training and transferable skills courses. Students may take courses in addition to those listed, and should discuss this with their supervisor.
Year One
Training courses
Compulsory (not examined)
MY400 Fundamentals of Social Science Research Design (H) or LL4L5 Socio-legal Theory and Practice (H)
Transferable skills courses
Compulsory (not examined)
LL500 Doctoral Research Seminar
MY593A Authoring a PhD and Developing as a Researcher: Getting Started
Optional (not examined)
Staff Seminar Series
Year Two
Training courses
Compulsory (not examined)
Minimum of three workshops of MY530 Advanced Qualitative Analysis Workshops
Optional (not examined)
Staff Seminar Series
Year Three
Training courses
Compulsory (not examined)
PhD lunchtime seminar series
Optional (not examined)
Staff Seminar Series
Year Four
Transferable skills courses
Optional (not examined)
Staff Seminar Series
Assessment strategies:
Students get the opportunity to undertake formative assessments in the form of giving a presentation about their work in the course of LL500, as part of the upgrade procedure and in the student seminar series. All students are also required to submit regular drafts of their work for appraisal by their supervisors.
Materials submitted for upgrade are read by two readers independent of the supervisory team. The readers provide detailed feedback to the student and can make themselves available for discussion with the candidate and supervisory team if necessary.
13. / Programme structures and requirements, levels, modules and awards
See the MPhil/PhD Law programme regulations for more information.

Additional information

14. / Criteria for admission to the programme
The normal entry requirement for the MPhil/PhD. programme is an average of 70 per cent on the LLM or equivalent qualification. The requirement will be applied flexibly, in particular to candidates who have performed exceptionally well in a dissertation or who have an outstanding undergraduate qualification. Students must indicate the title of a broad general area in which they wish to undertake
research, and a detailed outline (three or four pages) of a specific topic within that field indicating the ways in which they consider that extended scholarly research and analysis in the field will make a significant and original contribution to knowledge. They are required to give some indication of the materials they expect to use, where they expect to find them and the methods of analysis they propose to use. If the proposal takes the form of a theoretical hypothesis, they are asked to indicate how they propose to test it. All students shortlisted for a place are interviewed with the Deputy DPD and at least one subject specialist.
15. / Indicators of quality
  • Entrance requirements (please see details in no.14);
  • Research quality: 5*A in 2001 RAE;
  • Authorship of key texts: members of the Department have written key texts in many of the LLB subject areas;
  • Members of the Department serve or have served on the editorial boards of many leading journals;
  • The School participates in the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) which provides indicators of student satisfaction with various aspects of their research degree programme. Results from this survey have been positive for the School;
  • Examiners’ reports from viva examinations are considered centrally within the School and provide indicators on the quality of the research student experience and supervision quality;
The LSE Careers Centre website provides data on career destinations of LSE research graduates.
16. / Methods for evaluating and improving the quality and standard of teaching and learning
School mechanisms:
  • The Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) runs the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) and distributes results to departments. Survey results are considered by School Committees (Research Degrees Sub-Committee & Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee) as well as within academic departments. Any issues arising from the PRES would be addressed by the appropriate body/department.
  • Taught courses on MPhil/PhD programmes are included in the School’s internal student satisfaction survey, where such courses are provided at the Masters’ level, as conducted by the Teaching Quality Assurance and Review Office.
  • Departments review their programmes according to their own system of periodic review.
  • The Methodology Institute offers methodological training across all MPhil/PhD programme and transferrable study skills training courses are offered by the TLC for all MPhil/PhD students: this central resource enhances the standard of teaching and learning for all research students across the School.
  • TLAC Review of the Department once every 5 years.
Departmental mechanisms:
  1. Annual progress reports
  2. Upgrade procedure from MPhil to PhD
  3. Monitoring of completion and pass rates.
  4. Staff student liaison committees are held once a term and are open to all students. Two student representatives a year are appointed to represent the student body.

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