Film Studies Department, King’s College London
Transfer from MPhil to PhD Protocol
Your upgrade from Mphil to PhD registration will normally occur between 9-12 months of full-time
registration as a result of a formal upgrade review. An upgrade review panel will consider upgrade
documents to determine an outcome. The panel consists of a panel chair (normally your second supervisor)
and another member of staff from inside or outside the department.
For your upgrade, you should upload the following required documents on the on-line upgrade portal:
ABSTRACT
You should provide an abstract of your project (including any indications as to how it may have changed
since you started). The abstract should be no more than 300 words.
SECTION OF DRAFT REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The literature review should be normally around 4000 words in length with a proper contextualization of
your approach and methodology within the field; if the review is longer than this, please indicate the portion
that the upgrade review panel should focus on and what the remainder will cover. The literature review
should clearly indicate how the material has been selected and how it relates to the thesis’ aims, research
questions and theoretical and methodological orientation.
SECTION OF DRAFT CHAPTER
The section of a draft chapter should be normally 4000 words in length; we normally recommend a short
introductory paragraph explaining the scope of the chapter and its relation to the thesis as a whole. Although
it will be necessary to engage with literature specific to the chapter’s research aims, it is important that this
chapter provides the review panel with a clear idea of how you will use this literature. The research aims and
objectives specific to the chapter should be clearly spelled out. For examples, if textual analysis will be a
major component of your dissertation then this chapter should offer textual analysis of your chosen films; or
if the primary aim of the research is to provide detailed cultural and historical analysis of the context in
which particular films or institutions emerged, then the chapter should demonstrate this aim.
PROVISIONAL STRUCTURE & TIMETABLE
Please provide a provisional chapter outline and timetable for completing each chapter. Under provisional
chapter titles (these should be descriptive, working titles) please indicate:
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what the key issues or themes being explored in the chapter will be
briefly what the method or approach of the chapter will be (e.g. historical survey, close analysis,
historical contextualisation, etc.), with an indication of the key literature drawn upon
which films will or might be examined (and how they have been selected, according to criteria such
as period/place in which they were made, genre, style, etc.)
You should provide a selective bibliography and filmography.
OUTCOME
The upgrade panel will determine whether a candidate should be upgraded from MPhil to PhD after the
review meeting (mini-viva). The primary supervisor (or, in the case of co-supervision, the nominated
primary supervisor) is not involved in the panel’s decision. During the review meeting, your supervisor will,
however, take notes to review with you at an agreed date after the meeting. The candidate will have access
to the panel chair’s report of the mini-viva through the on-line portal.
There will be three possible outcomes to a formal review:
(i) upgrade attempt successful: the student’s registration is transferred from MPhil to PhD with
immediate effect;
(ii) refer for further review*: the student does not meet the requirements to upgrade at this
time and is required to meet conditions set by the panel and undertake a further formal
review (see 9.3.5 below for the maximum number of attempts). Formal notification of this
outcome to the student shall be classed as a written warning under Regulation 1.5 of the
B4 Academic Progress Regulations, provided that this is made clear to the student in the
notification;
* The Department of Film Studies is of the view that some level of revision is a normal part of the process of
academic progress.
(iii) fail: the review determines:
(a) that the student’s registration should remains at MPhil, or
(b) that proceedings to terminate the student’s registration under B4 Academic
Progress Regulations should commence.