Footnotes

A: Paper 7: Students produce a research paper, between 6,000 and 8,000 words, related to their designated major field, to be submitted in ST. Students must also give a 60-minute presentation on their research paper in ST.

B: Paper 7, Presentation requirements: Students are also required to present in the FM505 seminar series each year from year three onwards.

Note for prospective students:
For changes to graduate course and programme information for the next academic session, please see the graduate summary page for prospective students. Changes to course and programme information for future academic sessions can be found on the graduate summary page for future students.

Footnotes

A: Paper 8, FM505: Students need to pass Paper 8 with a mark of 65% or higher.

Progression and upgrade requirements

In order to progress unconditionally from the first to the second year of MRes registration students are required to achieve pass marks of 50% or higher in papers 1, 2, 3 and 4. Students who do not attain this standard may proceed to the second year with up to two resit papers, only with the permission of the MRes Programme Director.

Award of the MRes in Finance

The award and classification of the MRes degree is consistent with the School's Scheme for the Award of a five-unit Taught Masters Degree. Students are required to achieve a pass mark of 50% in 5 full-units: Papers 1,2,3 and 7 (Research paper) and in one of Papers 5 or 6. The marks for papers 1,2,3 and 7 and the highest mark from papers 5 or 6 will be used to determine the degree classification. One failed paper (but not a bad fail of 29% or less) can be compensated by a mark of 55% or higher in another paper.

Progression to PhD registration

For PhD registration students are required to achieve marks of 50% or higher in Papers 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6, and a mark of 65% or higher in Paper 7.

Students missing the overall progression requirement by one paper are permitted to progress to PhD registration, but will subsequently need to re-sit and pass the paper to the necessary standard to continue their PhD registration. Students missing the progression requirement by more than one paper are required to pass those papers to the necessary standard before PhD registration can be permitted.

Throughout the coursework portion of the MRes or MRes/PhD programme, students failing a paper or missing a progression mark will have to retake that paper within one year of the original examination. Students can resit each paper only once. Students registered for the PhD remain subject to the relevant MRes regulations for any courses or examinations they are completing. Students who have been permitted to progress onto the PhD without satisfying the complete progression standard will have their PhD registration discontinued if they fail to reach this standard at re-sit.

Special provisions for students who have completed MSc Finance and Economics within the Finance Department at LSE.

Students who have completed FM436 to the required standard as part of their MSc do not have to take the course again.  To substitute for FM436, students will take EC442 Macroeconomics.  The FM436 mark will be carried forward to count as the Paper 3 mark for progression to PhD registration.  It will not count towards the award of the MRes degree. 

A finance thesis should normally consist of a series of at least three papers with one paper being solo-authored and it is expected that the papers be of publishable quality.