Handbook for the CCPP Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought
(This handbook should be read in conjunction with the UWS Handbook Information for Research Candidates*)
* It should be noted that the CCPP handbook is directly relevant to the CCPP Doctoral Program and the UWS Handbook relates to all other information regarding Higher Degree Research candidates.
Contents
1. Welcome – Director, Professor Anna Yeatman
2. Introduction
3. Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought
3.1. Facilities
3.2. Research Student Support Funding
3.3. Student evaluations of coursework
3.4. Completion of coursework at
satisfactory level
3.5. Grading of coursework
3.6. Grade Appeals
3.7. Transition from coursework to thesis in the Doctoral Program of Political and Social Thought
3.8. Supervision
3.9. Principal Supervisor
3.10. Supervision Panels
3.11. Development of thesis proposal
3.12. Confirmation of Candidature
3.13. The CCPP CoC Panel
3.14. Apart from Supervisor, Panel and Chair (who must
attend), who else can come to the CoC?
3.15. Annual progress reports
3.16. Length of Thesis
3.17. CCPP Intellectual Conversations
1. Welcome – Director, Professor Anna Yeatman
The Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy has two types of PhD program—the first is an innovation in the Australian system and it is our flagship program: a four-year (full-time) PhD in Political and Social Thought where students have to satisfactorily complete four substantive courses before they proceed to work on the thesis; and the second is a regular three-year (full-time) PhD. In the Centre, we are aware that it is the quality and vitality of our PhD students that is a key ingredient in making the Centre an exciting, cutting-edge and challenging intellectual environment. We are committed to recruiting such students, ensuring they are well supported when they arrive, and making them feel welcome in all of the activities of the Centre. My door is open at any time to those of you who are Centre PhD candidates.
Anna Yeatman
2. Introduction
CCPP’s vision and goals
The Centre seeks to promote democratic governance, active citizenship, and a practical awareness of the interdependencies of the political, the social, the economic and the environmental.
The goals of the Centre are three-fold:
1. To produce, communicate and network internationally recognized and high quality research on important topics in citizenship and public policy;
2. To engage in research and other kinds of partnership with practitioners in government and non-government organizations;
3. To train and educate postgraduate students who can take the Centre’s vision in new directions.
What do we do?
The Centre engages with a number of communities; academic and non-academic as well as postgraduate students in intellectual and research-oriented conversation through its seminar and workshop series. The Centre also collaborates in research with practitioner communities especially in the areas of social enterprise, deliberative democracy, and deep democracy. As a result Centre publications are focused on varied audiences.
CCPP research programs
Political and Social Thought
Political and Social Thought is the theoretical heartland of the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy and all full-time academic members of the Centre are affiliated with this program. It is also the intellectual basis for the Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought. As a distinct program of activity, it comprises specialist theoretical work. It is also the hub for regional, national and international networks in political and social thought. Specialist strengths cover:
· Kant, Arendt, Heidegger, Weber, Simmel
· Freedom, practical reason, and identity
· Democratic theory
· Indigeneity and Modernity
· Reconciliation and post-trauma community
· Subjectivity and politics
· Action theory, institutional design and economics
· Daoist theory of action and economics
· Ethics and belonging in a climate-changed world
Active Citizenship and Democratic Governance
This program brings together expertise in methods of inclusive and democratic decision-making (Deliberative Democracy and Deep Democracy) with research on these practices. We also engage with research and practice in the areas of:
· public-private partnerships in the work of government
· democratic and inclusive governance
· inclusion of citizens in the policy process
· technology, participation and wellbeing
· ethnic diversity and corporate governance.
Social Economy
This program brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss, research and practice new solutions to the challenge of achieving environmental and social well-being in the 21st century. Conventional models are failing us and we need to learn from innovative and experimental solutions that are being pioneered within the social economy by businesses, NGOs, self-organised networks and social movements with strong values and articulated missions. We offer expertise in:
· imagining and enacting ethical economic practices
· mapping of the social economy in Australia and internationally
· theorization of social economy-ecology interdependencies
· action research methodologies for building the social economy
· research partnership with communities, NGOs, business, farmers, scientists, philanthropists and the media in learning about ecology-economy connections and translating such learning into action.
3 Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought
3.1 Facilities
All students will have access to a desk, computer and a shared telephone. Full-time students will be allocated a permanent desk and part-time students will have access to a hot desk. Students who are allocated a desk are expected to use it on a regular basis. Students should advise the Centre’s administrative officer if they are not going to use the desk allocated to them.
All students have access to basic stationery supplies, printing and photocopying.
3.2 Research Student Support Funding
Funding is available to support attendance at overseas and domestic workshops, meetings and conferences where a paper is being presented that relates to your intended thesis research. CCPP approval for conference funding is on the basis that a paper will be presented. It is a condition of submission that affiliation to CCPP will be acknowledged. The level of annual funding is determined by UWS and can vary from year to year.
3.3 Student evaluations of coursework
Students are expected to complete evaluations of the coursework component of the Doctoral Program after both Semester 1 and Semester 2. These should be handed in to the PG Convenor no later than a week after teaching has finished. The lecturer will hand out evaluation questions half way through the teaching session.
3.4 Completion of coursework at satisfactory level
Students are expected to complete each of the four coursework units and achieve a grade of “satisfactory” which is equivalent to a B+ or better to proceed to the thesis stage of their candidature.
3.5 Grading of coursework
Students’ work for assessment in each unit will be graded in time for grades to be submitted to the Examiner’s meeting on a date determined by the Doctoral Program Convenor. Where the unit convenor has awarded a final grade for the unit of less than ”satisfactory”, the Doctoral Program Convenor is to allocate a second examiner for the work submitted for assessment in that unit. If the second examiner agrees with the unit convenor’s judgment, the decision stands, but where such agreement is not given, the Doctoral Program Convenor should convene a meeting of the two examiners and seek resolution of the grade. There is no formal transcript for coursework grades, but each student will be given a letter to attest to the courses taken and outcome achieved by a student.
3.6 Grade Appeals
All Grade Appeals are subject to the UWS Grade Review Policy.
3.7 Transition from coursework to thesis in the Doctoral Program of Political and Social Thought
Once the coursework is satisfactorily completed, students are expected to begin work on their thesis topic and proposal under supervision.
3.8 Supervision
Each student will have established and had confirmed a supervision panel in the first year of their candidature in the Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought. The supervision panel for each student should have been established and confirmed as early as possible in the student’s candidature (and no later than the end of the first year of candidature for students admitted to the Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought). No supervision arrangement can be regarded as final until it has the approval of the CCPP Director.
3.9 Principal Supervisor
It may not always be possible to meet the student’s first choice for principal supervisor. In consultation with the Doctoral Program Convenor students will discuss supervision possibilities.
3.10 Supervision Panels
A Supervision Panel consists of the following roles.
Principal Supervisor. This person must qualify as a 'supervisor' under the UWS rules and policies. He/she is responsible for the functioning of the panel and thus for the progress of the candidature. He/she is the person who can sign Annual Progress Reports, requests for travel and non-travel funding and other forms that may be associated witha PhD candidature, whenevera supervisor's formal authorisationis necessary.
Co-supervisor. This person neednot qualify as a 'supervisor' under the UWS rules and policies, and has no delegation to sign forms. He/she willhave substantial intellectual responsibility for advisingthe candidate on all aspects of the dissertationresearch, as the candidate's mentor, within the oversight of the Principal Supervisor. Performing inthe role of co-supervisor is understood to be an important part of a junior academic's professional development.
Panel member.Panel members should be selected because they have interest and competencein some aspectof the dissertation research. Panel members will participate in the Annual Progress Report meeting and, at the discretion of the student and the Principal Supervisor,in other ways that are useful to the candidate's progress."
3.11 Development of thesis proposal
The development of the thesis proposal is the first stage of working on the thesis. It forms the basis of the Confirmation of Candidature process. Candidates are expected to work closely with their supervision panel in developing their proposal, and to attend the CCPP Thesis Development Workshop which will be offered each year.
3.12 Confirmation of Candidature
Details concerning the Confirmation of Candidature (CoC) are published in the UWS Handbook http://www.uws.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/70680/CoC_Guidelines_Jan2011.pdf . The CoC occurs during the first year of the thesis preparation when a clear statement of the research proposal (in conformity with the protocol attached as an appendix to this document) is approved by the Principal Supervisor.
3.13 The CCPP CoC Panel
The steps that should be followed before, during and after a CoC in the CCPP are set out in Appendix 1.
3.14 Apart from Supervisor, Panel and Chair (who must attend), who else can come to the CoC?
- Anyone from CCPP
- An invitee of the candidate’s
It is assumed that everyone attending a CoC will have read the candidate’s pre-circulated document.
3.15 Annual progress reports
It is the responsibility of students to complete the relevant sections of the Annual Progress reports and to discuss their progress with their supervisor prior to submission by 30 June each year of candidature after the first year. http://www.uws.edu.au/research/current_research_students/annual_reports
3.16 Length of Thesis
The word limit on the thesis for the Doctoral program in Political and Social Thought is 80,000 words.
3.17 CCPP Intellectual Conversations
It is a requirement that all students participate in the academic life of the Centre. This includes attendance at the CCPP Seminar Series, the Occasional Seminar Series and Master Classes given by distinguished academics who have been invited as part of the Director’s Visitor Program.
APPENDICES
Steps to be taken in organising and completing a CoC in the CCPP
Preparing for CoC
1. Candidate and Supervisor discuss who would be a good Chair for CoC (can be internal or external to CCPP). Supervisor contacts suggested person and asks whether they would be willing to chair that CoC.
2. Supervisor ensures Doctoral Program Convenor (DPC) approves Panel composition including Chair.
3. DPC gets ADR to approve Chair.
4. Supervisor gets Administrative Officer (AO) CCPP to organise CoC meeting with Panel and Chair.
5. Event is diarised by AO with Panel, Chair and CCPP staff and CoC paper is circulated (at least 7 days in advance) on the understanding that attendance is optional and that those attending will have read the candidate's pre-circulated CoC paper.
At CoC
6. Chair invites candidate to speak to the pre-circulated paper (for about 20 minutes).
7. All present direct questions and comments to the Candidate.
8. Candidate and audience leave the room; Supervisor, Panel and Chair remain.
9. Supervisor, Panel and Chair go over the main points that have arisen in discussion.
10. Candidate invited by Chair to return to the room.
11. Chair conveys orally to Candidate a summary of the panel's discussion.
12. Supervisor and Panel leave room.
13. Chair invites Candidate to comment candidly on the strengths and weaknesses of the Supervisor and panel. This is an opportunity for the Candidate to reveal problems with the working relationship, if there are any.
14. Chair closes CoC and completes CoC report documentation.
After CoC
15. Chair shows report to Panel and it is either verified or amended.
16. If Panel recommends that the Candidate's CoC paper be revised, Chair liaises with Supervisor and Candidate to make sure that the revisions have been done.
17. Chair gives completed CoC report (including, if necessary, confirmation that the required revisions of CoC paper have been implemented) to AD(R).
18. AD(R) signs off the CoC report.
Protocol for COC
CCPP Confirmation of Candidature Research Protocol
This protocol is an adaptation of the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Proposal protocol – it provides an excellent training in how to engage in the substantive, formal and technical aspects of developing a persuasive research project proposal. As such it will facilitate your clarification of a final research design for your thesis including the specification of a manageable research question (thesis topic).
In following this protocol, please ensure you comply with all that it asks of you – this is an important aspect of a good research project proposal. Seek appropriate guidance from your supervisor/supervision panel.
PART A-Administrative Summary
1. Proposal Title