Research environment for PhD students in Politics
Politics boasts a vibrant research environment in which our PhD students are fully integrated. You will find a wide range of activities and events which will be of interest to you, both within Politics and outside it.
Depending on your research interests, you will be a member of one of our thematic Centres – the Centre for Comparative Politics, the Centre for International Politics (CIP), the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT) and you may also be associated with one of the five research clusters within politics. Each Centre and Clusters organises events, including some tailored especially for PhD students, and you will have every opportunity to participate in the day-to-day life of the Centre and cluster to which you belong. Politics as a whole also stages a regular research seminar to which all PhD students are warmly invited.
Aside from these forums within Politics, there are numerous research centres that also pursue active and wide-ranging agendas of research and associated activities. These include the Political Economy Institute (PEI), which has a dedicated postgraduate network, and you will find a range of events staged by such centres as the Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG), the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), the Brooks World Poverty Institute or the Gender Research Network, all of which PhD students are welcome to attend.
In 2005, PhD students in Politics established an electronic journal, Political Perspectives, which is edited by a team of current PhD students in our Discipline Area. The journal publishes postgraduate research across the wide terrain of politics, and it is hoped that you will want to be fully involved in the running of the journal, either as part of the editorial team or as a referee for the submissions that the journal receives and the papers it is intending to publish. The existing editorial team certainly extends a very warm welcome to new recruits! It is also hoped that you will be thinking about publishing your own work in Political Perspectives and participating in the various special issues that are published each year.
PhD students in Politics are also encouraged strongly to be active in our wider professional environment. We aim in particular to assist students in attending and presenting papers at conferences and workshops, and you will be able to apply for funds to help cover the costs of those activities. In the last year, our PhD students have participated in a wider range of large and small conferences, including those of the Political Studies Association, the International Studies Association, the British International Studies Association, the Association of Chinese Political Studies, the University Association for Contemporary European Studies and many more. Our students are also active in various postgraduate networks associated with the major professional associations.
These forms of research activity are complemented by opportunities to contribute to the Discipline Area’s teaching agenda, and our PhD students’ role as postgraduate teaching assistants is extremely valuable. You will have the opportunity to apply for teaching work each year and we aim to allow all interested students the possibility of gaining experience of teaching during their time here, as an important aspect of both your career development and your participation in the wider research and teaching life of Politics.