Blog
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LabArchives vs Benchling vs GraphPad Prism: The Wet-Lab Tool Stack for a Chemistry or Biology PhD (2026)
Electronic lab notebooks, statistics and design software for a UK wet-lab chemistry or biology doctorate — LabArchives, Benchling, GraphPad Prism and SnapGene compared, with UK institutional licensing checked.
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How to Write the Literature Review Chapter of an Economics PhD Thesis (2026)
Most UK economics PhDs are three-essay theses, and each essay carries its own literature review organised around a model and an empirical literature, classified by JEL code. Ten steps to build it the way examiners expect.
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How to Do a Practice-Based PhD in Architecture: Structure, Portfolio and What Examiners Expect (2026)
A practice-based or by-design PhD in architecture pairs a design portfolio with a shorter written thesis, typically around 50,000 words at the UK universities that name this route explicitly. Nine steps from application to viva.
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What Does the University of Manchester’s PhD Thesis Policy Actually Require? (2026)
The University of Manchester’s Presentation of Theses Policy (March 2026) caps a PhD at 80,000 words of main text, allows journal-format submission, and requires a fixed set of preliminary pages including a Generative AI Disclosure.
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What Ethics Approval Do You Need for a Sociology or Social Work PhD? (2026)
University ethics committee approval is mandatory for every UK sociology or social work doctorate; NHS Health Research Authority approval is an additional, separate requirement only when the research recruits through NHS or regulated social care services.
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Your Psychology PhD Data Are Analysed but the Results and Discussion Chapters Are Not Written: How to Write Them to APA and JARS Standards, Study by Study (2026)
Three studies run, the analyses done, the funded period ending, and the results and discussion chapters of a psychology PhD still in SPSS output and notes. How the empirical chapters of a UK psychology doctorate are built — results reported…
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Which Research Council Funds Your PhD? UKRI Doctoral Training by Council and Discipline in Numbers (2026)
UKRI now funds doctoral training through two award types, landscape and focal, and the 2026 investment lists show how unevenly they fall across disciplines: 65 current EPSRC centres for doctoral training grouped in nine themes, 15 ESRC and 17 MRC…
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Which Financial Databases Should an Accounting or Finance PhD Actually Use? WRDS, Compustat, CRSP, Datastream, Bloomberg, FAME and Companies House Compared (2026)
Seven data sources an accounting or finance doctorate in the UK is built on, judged on what matters over four years: whether your business school already holds the licence, whether the sample can be rebuilt in year three, and whether…
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How to Structure a Computer Science PhD Thesis: Thesis Statement, Contribution Chapters and the 60,000-Word Limit, Step by Step (2026)
A computer science PhD thesis is built around one claim and the contributions that prove it, not around a fixed list of chapters. Eight steps from thesis statement to submission — the shapes systems, theory and empirical theses take, how…
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Which Theoretical Framework Should an Education PhD or EdD Use? Bourdieu, Vygotsky, Bronfenbrenner, Activity Theory and Bernstein for the Doctoral Thesis (2026)
An education doctorate is examined on whether its theory does work, not on which theorist it cites. The five frameworks UK education theses actually build on — Bourdieu, Vygotsky and sociocultural theory, Bronfenbrenner, cultural-historical activity theory and Bernstein — with…