StudyQA — Master: Public Policy — City University of Hong Kong

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Description Contents Requirements Funding

This programme aims to provide advanced training for PhD and MPhil students in the area of policy and administration. It aims to help students pursue academic achievements in social research and develop independent and critical thinking capability, mastery of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and writing skills necessary for the successful publication of research findings. It will offer students opportunities to acquire scholarly competence in conducting research on public management, policy studies, politics and international affairs, China studies, applied ethics, urban and housing studies, environmental policy, and other related issues in the social sciences.

Upon successful completion of this Programme, students should be able to:

Discover new knowledge by identifying and critically evaluating the relevant literature in the topic areas selected
Analyze real-world policy issues with theoretical and empirical research
Develop independent scholarly competencies in research design, methodological, and analytical techniques and sophisticated theorizing
Generate competitive grant proposals, seminar and conference papers, journal submissions and monographs

POL Staff-led Seminars for Research Students
Postgraduate Thesis Seminar
Politics and Public Policy
Research Design, Methodology, and Ethics
Teaching Students: First Steps

Qualifying/Annual Report Submission

Students must submit a qualifying report within the specified qualifying period as follow:
Full-time: within 6-12 months from the start of study
Part-time: within 9-18 months from the start of study.

After completing the qualifying report, students must submit progress reports on an annual basis until they have submitted the final version of their thesis for oral examination and have completed any other programme requirements.

Thesis

The MPhil thesis should demonstrate the student’s ability to design a research agenda, collect data from a variety of locally available sources, deploy methodologies in a systematic way, build a coherent argument that addresses relevant literature and debates, and indicate prospects for making serious theoretical contributions.

Requirements

Hold a relevant bachelor’s degree with first or second class honours (or equivalent qualification) from a recognised university.
Applicants from an institution where the language of teaching is not English should satisfy the minimum English proficiency requirements specified by both the University and individual Colleges and Schools. The University’s minimum English proficiency requirement for research degree programmes is 550 (paper-based test) or 213 (computerbased test) or 79 (internet-based test) in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) OR an overall band score of 6.5 in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Equivalent qualifications are also acceptable.
Official certificates and transcripts of academic qualifications (Certificates and transcripts that are not in English should be accompanied by a formal certified translation in English.) [Applicants who obtained degrees from institutions that gave degree classification and/or grade point average but are not shown in the certificate or transcript are required to also send copies of any other official documents that indicate their formal degree classification or grade point average.]
Certificates of professional qualifications, if applicable (Certificates that are not in English should be accompanied by a formal certified translation in English.)
(In support of the applicant’s publication record, if applicable) the front page of the papers (for papers that have been published) or the letter of acceptance (for papers that have been accepted for publication). [Applicants to the School of Law must also submit a self-assessment (of not more than 400 words) of their publications together with full copies of their best three publications. Where any publication so submitted is in a language other than English, it must be accompanied by an abstract in English.]
Nominate two academic referees who can comment on their academic performances (proposed supervisor and persons from non-academic circles are normally not acceptable as academic referees).
A non-refundable application fee of HK$200 will be charged for each online application. Settlement of the application fee shall be made via online credit card payment.