Department website: lse.ac.uk/methodology
Number of graduate students (full-time equivalent)
Taught: 15
Research: 7
Number of faculty (full-time equivalent): 9
Location: Columbia House
About the Department
The Department of Methodology is an interdisciplinary group with joint appointments in or close connections to other departments in the School. The disciplinary backgrounds of the staff include political science, statistics, sociology, social psychology, anthropology and criminology.
The Department of Methodology is a national centre of excellence in methodology and the teaching of methodology. The Department was set up to coordinate and provide a focus for methodological activities at the School, in particular in the areas of graduate student (and, potentially, staff) training and of methodological research.
In addition to the MSc and MPhil/PhD in Social Research Methods, the Department offers a variety of advanced level courses, seminars and workshops in research design, quantitative analysis and qualitative methods. These are available for all PhD students in the School. Many departments in the School require students to take courses in the Department as part of MSc and PhD programmes.
MPhil/PhD Social Research Methods
Visiting Research Students
The Department of Methodology at LSE is catholic with regard to methodology: we support both standalone qualitative and quantitative research, as well as interesting ways of combining them. We encourage applications from candidates who demonstrate an interest in a substantive area of research and particular methodological approach, aiming at a methodological development. This could involve collecting innovative new data, new analytic techniques, method comparison, evaluation or validation, method critique, applying existing methodology in new contexts, or cost-benefit analysis of methodologies.
All research students are admitted to the programme as MPhil students, until they are upgraded to PhD. From your first year, you will produce a 10,000 word research proposal, outlining the theoretical and conceptual framework, the aims and methods of your thesis, accompanied by an oral presentation. After this year, you will spend more time on independent study under the guidance of your supervisor. This will involve the collection, organisation and analysis of data, and writing up the results. You will be expected to make an active contribution to research seminars by presenting papers and joining in the discussions.
Taught programme