MPhil/PhD Upgrades

When you're undertaking a PhD at UCL, you start off registered for the MPhil degree and you will then be allowed to upgrade to a PhD after you fulfil certain requirements. Oliver Boney has kindly compiled some guidance about how to approach the MPhil/PhD upgrade process for students registered with the Division of Surgery (which is where most of the students with Ramani will be registered with from August 2018 onwards):

WHO CAN APPLY TO UPGRADE? Usually, your supervisor will propose the option of upgrading your MPhil / MSc to a PhD – though you might wish to discuss it at an early stage. Either way, your supervisor needs to support your plan to upgrade, which means they must be satisfied that your work is PhD-worthy and that they believe you’ll complete it satisfactorily.

WHEN? There are conditions regarding when you can apply to upgrade, which vary depending on whether you’re doing your degree part-time or full-time. For part-timers, you can upgrade once you’ve been registered on your higher degree programme for a minimum of 15 months; for full-timers it’s 9 months (but see webpages at bottom of this guide).

HOW MANY ATTEMPTS? If you are unsuccessful at the first upgrade attempt, you can have a second go six months later. But follow the guidance below, and you hopefully won’t need to.

Here are the steps involved in making it happen:

• (A few months in advance): Book a PhD upgrade viva appointment. (Must be a day when your primary and secondary supervisor can attend, so find out available dates from the relevant Division at UCL first, then check with your supervisors when they’re free). Also note: they don’t always take place at UCL (e.g. the earliest appointment I was offered was at the Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore), so you may wish to wait until a slot at the Bloomsbury campus is available.
• Update your student research log with various objectives and progress towards them. (Can all be done retrospectively, but slightly laborious and painful, so don’t leave it until the last minute).
• Write an upgrade report, which must be emailed to the relevant division at least a month before the upgrade viva appointment itself. This is normally about 6-7 sides of A4. Some divisions have a template; UCL’s generic upgrade guidance (see link below) stipulates that it should contain:
  • An introduction giving the context of the work;
  • A literature review;
  • A research question and hypothesis;
  • A section on methodology;
  • A substantial piece of work towards the thesis objectives;
  • A plan and timetable for the remainder of the work;
  • A bibliography.
• Ask your primary supervisor to write a report on your work to date (which must also be submitted at least a month before the upgrade viva)

The viva day itself:

Dress smartly (but suit / tie not necessary)

Presentation: You begin by giving a five minute powerpoint presentation of your work to a classroom of various people from your division (audience 10-20 people). When you’ve finished, there are five minutes for questions from the audience. (NB Your supervisor will hopefully be there for moral support!) There will probably be other upgrade candidates whose presentations you will also get to see, which provides an interesting insight into how people present their research to a non-expert audience. (I was one of five on the day I upgraded).

Viva: After all the presentations are finished, you will be directed to a separate office where your viva will take place. Mine consisted of three examiners: one ‘external’, one ‘internal’ and my secondary supervisor. It lasts 20-30 minutes, and they will ask you to justify various aspects of your PhD (eg questions about your methodology, your results to date and how you’ve analysed them etc). It’s all fairly friendly in tone, but you are being cross-examined on your research and must be able to explain / justify the rationale, methods and plans for your remaining work.

After the viva:

You will find out the result almost immediately after the viva is over. Like any interview, it’s worth noting down the points raised / any changes the interview panel suggested for improving your research methods while they’re fresh in your mind.

You can find further information at these pages:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/current-students/research_degrees/upgrade_mphil_phd

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/departments/gee/intranet/gee-post-graduates/upgrade

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/academic-manual/c1/research-registration/upgrade

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epidemiology/.../EPH_Guidelines_upgrade__web_version_.doc

A repository of Upgrade Reports and Presentations can be found here:

Upgrade report examples

Upgrade presentation (slides) examples

Additionally, there are attached Divisional Guidelines below which might be relevant depending on which Division your degree is registered under.