Development Economics - Applied (SOAS-Wits Joint MPhil/PhD in Applied Development Economices

Entry requirements

Students will need to apply to both institutions via each institution websites by 31 May 2024. For details on how to apply to SOAS, see the how to apply pages.Students will need to meet entry requirements of both institutions. For SOAS, this is a "good" Masters degree in (development) economics or any relevant discipline and a reference. For Wits, this is a Masters in Economics or in Applied Development Economics or any other suitable background.

As part of the application process, students will be asked to indicate either SOAS or Wits as their ‘home institution’. This is the institution where students will physically enrol and be based at for the duration of the PhD.

International Mobility

All students will be offered the opportunity to undertake international mobility to and from SOAS or Wits during the PhD, however it is not mandatory to complete this programme.

Months of entry

September

Course content

This joint PhD programme delivered in partnership with the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa will coordinate a programme of work in heterodox (feminist) economics or political economy that focuses on the way in which mutually reinforcing tendencies of climate breakdown, financialisation, and post-pandemic economic and social pressures affect multiple dimensions of wellbeing, including the institutions, norms, policies and practices conditioning daily life in Africa.

Why study the SOAS-Wits Joint MPhil/PhD in Applied Development Economics?

• We are ranked 27th in UK for economics (QS World University Rankings 2023)
• We are top 20 in the UK for student satisfaction with teaching (Complete University Guide 2023)
• We are top 40 in the UK for economics (Complete University Guide 2023)

The joint PhD between SOAS and Wits pushes boundaries of heterodox economics or political economy by anchoring the analysis explicitly in African realities and confronting particular conceptual frames with emerging empirical evidence. Whether they focus on a micro or macro object, the research projects will have in common a systemic and historic analysis, taking into account, as appropriate, intersecting social relations, mutations of the state and evolving international political-economic and financial relations.

The research projects will hence strengthen analysis that is strongly theoretically grounded while empirically informed, in contrast to current trends in (development) economics to eschew theory in favour of an experimental and purely empirical knowledge base. The research programme will also be explicitly decolonial, by critically querying existing research practices, by drawing on knowledge across Africa, and by explicitly situating contemporary phenomena in their historically evolved (and regionally interdependent) contexts.

Information for international students

For details, including English language requirements, please see SOAS website

Fees and funding

For details of postgraduate fees, please see SOAS website