Doctoral studies: introduction

Shortcuts

• Governing documents
• General syllabus
• Individual study plan
• Appointment of supervisors
• Doctoral student coursework
• Doctoral student thesis work
• Seminars

Governing documents

See the Faculty webpages for updated information and comprehensive collections of governing documents. Among others, both supervisor and PhD students should familiarize themselves with the Faculty regulation document:

Regulations for third cycle education at the Faculty of Social Sciences (pdf, new window)

General syllabus

The general syllabus describes the outline of the Doctoral program in Political Science and explains its objectives and learning outcomes. You can read it here:

General syllabus for third-cycle studies in Political Science (pdf, new window)

The faculty-wide regulations document for Doctoral education can be found here:

Regulations for third cycle education at the Faculty of Social Sciences (pdf, new window)

As a new PhD student, it is important that you familiarize yourself with the formalities of how the program is organized. There are some additional documents at the faculty webpage, but not all of them are translated into English:

Regulatory documents and action plans | Internal Faculty of Social Sciences

Individual study plan

The individual study plan (ISP) is a web-based living document that documents a doctoral student’s plans and progresses throughout the entire doctoral studies program. The ISP shall include a time plan for the doctoral student’s studies and thesis work, including courses, the organization of meetings with the supervisors, teaching and other departmental work and a funding plan for the doctoral studies.

The individual study plan shall be revised at least once a year, usually in the autumn term. A reminder, in the form of an email notification, will be sent to the doctoral student and main supervisor 11 months after the most recent adoption of the ISP. Both doctoral student and main supervisor may directly edit the plan while second supervisors can only access the PDF version of the plan.

For further guidance see the faculty page on the ISP system, including an ISP user manual:

Link to the faculty page on the ISP system

The Social Science Doctoral Student Council (SDR) regularly holds workshops together with the doctoral ombudsperson (DOMB) on ISPs.

sdr [at] ldk [dot] lu [dot] se (For more information, please contact the chair of the SDR using this e-mail link.) 

Appointment of supervisors 

Doctoral students normally get their first supervisors around the second semester, and their second supervisors in semester three or four, The Head of department decides and the Director of PhD studies prepares. Project-funded Doctoral students often get their first supervisors at the start. 

To ensure that PhD student and supervisor are aware of each other’s expectations, see the questionnaire below as a basis for discussion. Please fill out and discuss the questionnaire soon after the main supervisor has been assigned.

Feel free to revisit the questionnaire on other occasions where needed and suitable.

Material for a discussion about expectations (pdf, opens in a new window).

Doctoral student coursework 

The course component of the doctoral studies program comprises 60 credits, of which 30 must be in methodology. During the first year, the doctoral student completes several compulsory general orientation courses. 

The doctoral student supplement with specialized courses that are relevant to the individual thesis project. These can be taken at the faculty, as individual reading courses at the department, or at other universities. The doctoral student and the supervisors plan the course work in consultation with the Director of doctoral studies, to attain a good mix.

Courses during the first year of the doctoral studies (NB not 2025/26)

The first year of the doctoral studies at the department includes the following courses:

Fall Semester

• Meetings with the introduction team (mandatory, no credits, offered at the department).
• New in Academia: Doctoral Studies at the Faculty (mandatory; 4 credits; offered by the Faculty of Social Sciences; NB: you need to register individually through the faculty).
• Research Group Participation (voluntary, 4.5 credits, offered by the department, also includes activities during the spring semester).
• Political Science Research – Problems and Perspectives (mandatory, 15 credits, offered at the department).

Spring Semester

• Analyses in Qualitative Research (mandatory, 7.5 credits, offered by the Faculty of Social Sciences; NB: you need to register individually through the faculty).
• Introduction to Quantitative Methods (mandatory, 7.5 credits, offered by the Faculty of Social Sciences; NB: you need to register individually through the faculty).
• Applied Methodology (mandatory, 7.5 credits, offered at the department).
• Research Group Participation (continued).

For several reasons, we do not offer the full course package in 2025/26. The course Political Science Research will run January-April 2026. Other courses are decided through discussions with the Director of PhD studies and supervisors.

Course in research ethics

In addition, doctoral students need to attend a two-week faculty course on Research Ethics, usually in the beginning of their second year (3 credits), for which they also need to register individually.

Link to the course on Research Ethics

Additional courses

Additional courses are selected in consultation with the supervisors and director of doctoral studies. They may include, for instance, reading courses (see below), other faculty courses or external courses (see below).  Doctoral students have to fund their participation in these courses out of their so-called "backpack money" or apply for external funding through grants and scholarships. 

Read more about backpack money here

Reading courses

A reading course is a specific type of third cycle (doctoral student level) course that does not involve any teaching. There is typically only one participant. A reading course can deal with broad overviews of the field (i.e., “classics within IR”) or can be more narrowly focused on a particular set of theories or topic areas. 

Reading courses for 7.5 university credits (“högskolepoäng”) should include around 2500 pages of reading material, but this can vary depending on the nature of the texts. (A large number of articles, for example, could allow for a somewhat lower total number of pages.) 

The doctoral student and supervisor(s) take initiatives for developing reading lists. Based on their consultation, the main supervisor sends a proposed topic and list of readings to the director of studies for review. 

Examination is performed by a full or associate professor (“professor” or “docent”) at the department. The course is examined on the basis of a written paper of around 10–15 pages and through an oral examination. The examinator tells the Director of study when the PhD student has finalized the course, and the Director makes sure the result is entered into Ladok. 

Courses at the faculty and elsewhere at Lund University

At the faculty pages, you find current and planned courses given by the faculty, as well as by other faculties and units at Lund university:

Doctoral courses | Internal Faculty of Social Sciences

Among these we have an Agenda 2030 PhD course in Political Science open to all doctoral students at Lund University and free of charge:

Global environmental governance today - actors, institutions, complexity 

22 September - 26 September 2025 (3 ECTS)

• Course registration: send an e-mail to Fariborz Zelli (fariborz [dot] zelli [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (fariborz[dot]zelli[at]svet[dot]lu[dot]se))
• Registration deadline: 5 September 2025 at the latest, including a short motivation statement (max. 300 words). Places are limited and we will notify applicants about your acceptance latest by 12 September.

The faculty method center offers a number of workshops and courses in different social science methods. The longer ones can give course credits. The Doctoral student should send all course material to the Director of study after the course is finished. 

Method center: workshops and courses.

Doctoral courses at other universities

Doctoral students are encouraged to participate in external courses and summer schools to complement their education with more specialized training. The doctoral student shall always make sure that these courses will be approved within the doctoral program in Lund and shall also be aware that sometimes the credit points are counted differently here. Therefore, the candidate and supervisors shall consult with the Director of doctoral studies before a final application is made. 

Many universities offer specialized methods courses for political science phd students. Some examples are the ECPR’s summer and winter schools, the ICPSR Summer School at University of Michigan, USA, and the Summer School at University of Essex, UK. 

The Doctoral student can use their “backpack money” to pay for the course (see the heading on funding, to the left). They can also apply for grants, for instance faculty travel grants. 

When an external course is completed, the Doctoral student send certificates, syllabus, reading list and other information about the course to the Director of study, The latter decides on the number of credits points and make sure these are registered in Ladok. 

Doctoral student thesis work

The thesis can take the form of a monograph or a compilation thesis in which different parts (in the form of academic, preferably published, papers) are gathered under a summarizing chapter. It can be useful to look at earlier department dissertations, available online or as books. 

It is recommended that the Doctoral student decides at an early stage which form they aim for. The structure of the work should be reflected in the individual study plan.

Monograph thesis

A monograph thesis is usually a unified text written by a single author, divided into chapters, and dealing with a single theme. 

The length of monograph theses varies. The faculty’s printing grant, however, has a fixed ceiling which is determined on a yearly basis. In addition to other expenses related to the public defense of the thesis, this amount must suffice to cover the cost of printing a mandatory edition of copies (contact the Director of doctoral studies for the exact number). A thesis which is not written in English must be accompanied by a summary in English. 

Compilation thesis

A compilation thesis should contain a number of scholarly essays as well as a summarizing introductory chapter (“kappa”), which clarifies what total contribution to research the assembled articles represent. As with a monograph thesis, an overall assessment is made of the scholarly quality of the compilation thesis. If the author of the thesis has produced a scholarly work equivalent to a monograph thesis, the compilation thesis can be put forward for public defense. 

Usually, three to five scholarly essays are included in the thesis. The essays are to be already published or publishable works, either in journals or in scholarly anthologies. Specifically, the thesis should contain at least one article accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. At least two of the essays must have been written by a single author, and preferably no more than one should be co-authored with the supervisor and/or assistant supervisor. In co-authored works, the division of labor between the various authors must be documented in some way. The length of the essays and the number of co-authored essays, just as the number of authors these have, are weighed together in the assessment of the number of articles the thesis should contain. 

An example of the contents of a compilation thesis would be a published article, a submitted article, a chapter from an anthology and an article manuscript. 

The purpose of the introductory chapter (“kappan”) is to act as an overview, in which the individual essays are placed in context and their total contribution is highlighted. The recommended length of the summarizing chapter is around 10,000 words. This is to be considered, however, in light of the content of the articles. An introductory essay should strive to deepen and broaden those features of the dissertation’s topic that have not been given due attention in the articles. 

The essays should address a common theme but must be independent of each other from the point of view of content. 

Licentiate

The department has developed internal guidelines for monograph theses and compilation theses for a degree of licentiate. 

Guidelines for a degree of licentiate

Seminars

The general seminar is at the core of department activity. PhD students are expected to attend most of them. The seminar series is managed by professors, taking turns. Here is the schedule:

The Higher Research Seminar | Department of Political Science

There are also several specialized seminars at the department and PhD students are very welcome to attend. To follow one or a few such series is experienced as very rewarding by many. Here is the research groups’ seminar schedule: 

Calendar | SVETNET – Internal Department of Political Science

Three formal milestone seminars are devised to help the doctoral students in the various stages of their studies. Roughly one year into their employment, a plan seminar is held in which the doctoral student presents his or her ideas in the form of a draft. About midway, a mid-term seminar provides an opportunity for feedback and comments, while the manuscript conference seminar discusses the thesis manuscript in its relatively definitive form. Follow the headings to the left to read more precise guidelines.