Who can apply for an EGS Doctoral degree?

Students who apply for a EGS Doctoral degree should have a Masters degree (or equivalent) with excellent marks.

Prospective students are encouraged to use the departmental website to access information about the research interests of staff in the department. Please ensure that you consider this information carefully so that you determine if your research interests fit with departmental research strengths, and to identify a potential supervisor for your project.

What does an EGS Doctoral degree involve?

Students who apply for a PhD degree are expected to conduct research under the supervision of an EGS staff member and produce a dissertation of up to 80 000 words for examination by three external examiners.

Within six months of registration, you should present your research proposal to the department. This presentation should outline the nature of the research project, its aims, objectives, and conceptual/theoretical context, as well as methods. EGS staff and students are invited to the proposal presentation sessions (which happen twice annually) to offer constructive critique, which should be used to refine the final written proposal, which is lodged with your Faculty when your supervisor deems it to be ready. For PhD candidates, the proposal has to be ratified by the Dean of the Faculty in which you are registered, which in turn approves your doctoral candidature. Projects that involve the collection of data from human subjects are required to undergo an ethical review by the Science Faculty’s Ethics Committee. The ethics application process should be scheduled into the project’s overall timeline.

What is the application process for an EGS Doctoral degree?

Students must apply through the University of Cape Town’s online application system. Once this application has been completed, applicants will be prompted for additional application information that should be submitted directly to the EGS department using the forms linked below.

The additional information required by the EGS department is:

·         A 1000 word research proposal that details the topic that you would like to examine, positions the topic in existing scholarly debates, outlines the methodology that you would use to examine this topic, and considers the significance of this research.

·         A writing sample (an essay or thesis) that demonstrates your ability to develop a scholarly argument.

·          Two academic references, submitted by your referees through this reference template form. 

·         A completed EGS application check sheet where you can upload these additional documents and ensure that your application is complete and ready to be evaluated by the selection committee.

Please note that EGS has two deadlines for the submission of all required documents (including the online references), the 31st of March and the 31st of October.  The selection committee for Dissertation Masters and PhD applications sits twice a year, in May (following the end of March submission deadline, for commencement of studies in the second semester) and in November (following the end of October submission deadline, for commencement of studies in the first semester). Please take these deadlines into consideration when planning your application and funding submissions. Applications received by the department after these deadlines will be considered in the subsequent selection committee meeting.

For general application queries, please contact pgapplications.egs@uct.ac.za. Course content queries can be directed to the Dissertation Masters convenor, Dr Philile Mbatha (philile.mbatha@uct.ac.za).