University of Bath School of Management

The Bath PhD is an important part of the research-led environment of the School of Management.

Successful applicants are welcomed very much as junior academic colleagues rather than students, and are expected to play a full and professional role in contributing to the School's guiding objective of international academic excellence.

Candidates are accepted into the Bath PhD programme on the basis of (i) their intellectual potential to succeed as professional management scholars, and of (ii) their motivation to pursue careers as professional management academics.

Candidates join the School as a member of the disciplinary Subject Group in which they initially have a broad research interest and that will have overseen their acceptance into the School.

Because the Bath PhD incorporates a taught MRes, it is open not only to those with a suitable level of attainment in a pre-existing master degree, but also to exceptional candidates with only bachelor degree qualifications

Earning the MRes and PhD together normally takes between three to four years. Entry is in autumn each year.

The Bath Integrated PhD combines taught research training and applied research practice.

Academic year 1

In their first year, all PhD candidates begin three integrated processes to lay solid foundations for their professional research careers: (i) a programme of formal research training via the MRes; (ii) the process of refining and crystallizing their research interests; and (iii) the process of recruiting and formalising a supervisory team.

• (i) Formal research training

  All PhD candidates are registered on the MRes degree, which comprises the following assessed units taken during the first 12 months of registration:-

  • Semester 1
  • - Approaches to Management Research (6 credits)
  • - Social Science Research Principles and Skills (6 credits)
  • - Qualitative Research Methods 1 (6 credits)
  • - Quantitative Research Methods 1 (6 credits)
  • - Short Research Apprentice Project (6 credits)
  
  
  • Semester 2
  • - Research and Publishing Practicum (12 credits)
  • - Qualitative Research Methods 2 (6 credits)
  • - Quantitative Research Methods 2 (6 credits)
  • - One masters unit as prescribed by supervisory team (6 credits)
  
  
  • Summer semester
  • - Initial Research Proposal (30 credits)

  Although exemptions will be made for appropriate previous study in specific areas of research methods training at Masters level, and alternative Modules may be taken if the general programme is considered inappropriate by the supervisory team.

  In addition to these formal research training units of the MRes, all PhD candidates will throughout the year undertake practically-oriented research apprenticeships with faculty members in their Subject Group, and will be encouraged both to take additional relevant taught units at Bath and other academic institutions.

  PhD candidates are also expected to gain valuable research experience by attending and presenting at School seminars, and additionally to begin the process of developing papers, with Subject Group members and on their own, for presentation at academic conferences and for submission to scholarly journals.




• (ii) Refining and crystallising research interests

  While all PhD candidates will have joined the Subject Group within the School that most reflects their general area of academic interest, few will have arrived with a precisely defined, clearly elaborated and theoretically sound thesis that they can immediately research and test. Nor will they usually have had the opportunity to determine the optimally appropriate analytical approach and detailed methodologies necessary practically to operationalise their thesis research.

  Consequently, in the first year of the Bath PhD programme all candidates simultaneously begin a systematic process of (i) developing and refining a relatively narrow and feasible research topic and of (ii) exploring, evaluating and becoming proficient in the methodologies that will provide the most appropriate analytical strategies for their research. This might be based on the preliminary research suggestions candidates had when they applied to the School, but will often be different as a result of the development of candidates' research interests and ideas through their taught training. The 15,000-word detailed Initial Research Proposal undertaken in the summer semester of the MRes is designed specifically to help in this process by constituting a first draft of a substantive transfer examination document.




• (iii) Recruiting and formalising a supervisory team.

  Candidates will have a good deal of freedom and flexibility both to select their own research topic and to recruit an appropriate supervisory team for the PhD stage of their studies.

  Selecting a feasible research topic will be dictated predominantly by candidates' personal intellectual interests, but will also be determined in part by the availability and willingness of faculty members to supervise candidates and their topics.

  Accordingly, PhD candidates in their first year develop their research ideas in direct consultation with faculty members in order to put in place and formally agree a personal supervisory team that will consist of two or more experts from relevant Subject Groups.

Satisfactory progress in each of the above three areas is a requirement for progression into the second academic year of the PhD.

Academic year 2

In their second year, PhD candidates are registered on the MPhil/PhD. They are expected as early as possible during their second year to submit, present and defend at an oral examination their final research proposal.

Getting the theoretical and methodological aspects of original PhD research right is vital to expeditious achievement of a successful PhD thesis, so performance in this formal examination will determine progression onto PhD status. The final proposal will be developed from the Initial Research Proposal prepared as part of the MRes.

PhD candidates will also continue in their second year to undertake taught units in subject and method areas as determined with their supervisory team. Candidates will additionally continue both their practical research apprenticeships with faculty members and their development of scholarly papers.

Subsequent academic years

Carrying on from their second year, PhD candidates continue to carry out supervised, original research in accordance with their research proposal, and to write-up this research as a substantial thesis. The deliberately systematic structure of the PhD has been designed to ensure candidates complete their research and write-up their thesis within three to four years of initial registration.

University Regulations require that a PhD thesis dissertation must provide 'evidence of originality of mind and critical judgment in a particular subject' as well as constituting material 'worthy of peer reviewed publication'. Theses are examined by a Board of Examiners normally consisting of internal and external examiners.

PhD candidates are expected to continue to produce scholarly papers for presentation and publication throughout the whole period of their candidacy in order to ensure they graduate with the beginnings of a publication track-record of the kind demanded by the international market for professional management scholars.

Professional teaching training and experience

To compete successfully in the international job market for professional academics, the Bath PhD programme recognises that its graduates need to have not just world-class research training and emerging publication records, but also to demonstrate evidence of university teaching knowledge, experience, and ability. For this reason, the School offers a number of opportunities for PhD candidates to acquire valuable teaching skills.

All PhD candidates are expected to shadow the teaching of a limited number of faculty members in their Subject Groups, usually their supervisors, and to assist them with teaching as an introduction to professional university teaching. Additionally, all PhD candidates are expected to avail themselves of University courses relating to teaching and pedagogy.

Subject to performance in acquiring initial teaching training in the early stages of their registration, PhD candidates can progress to applying to compete for the opportunity to undertake some limited direct teaching practice under faculty supervision. Some of these teaching practice opportunities attract remuneration.