Programme Description

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You must have an active e-mail account in order to use this facility. PAC provides a service for the central processing of applications for admission to Postgraduate level courses in Ireland. The site will therefore be of interest to anyone considering postgraduate study. PAC is committed to ensuring that all applications are dealt with fairly and efficiently. PAC is a not-for-profit company registered in Ireland (291366)

The NIRSA PhD programme is a Graduate Research Education Programme (GREP) designed to provide a support infrastructure and environment for PhD students that will enhance the student experience of independent research, add value to their training, increase the quality of their research, and reduce thesis completion times. It will also broaden their range of expert knowledge and equip them with key research and professional skills in order to enhance their employment potential. Modules are delivered collaboratively by staff members from NIRSA and other Departments in the university, including Geography and Sociology.

The NIRSA programme is also part of two larger programmes that link up graduate programmes across the Irish university sector: the Irish Social Science Platform (ISSP, funded by PRTLI4) and the GREP in Politics, Sociology and Public Policy (funded by SIF 2 - the Strategic Innovation Fund Cycle 2). Through these initiatives students have access to a range of modules in 9 partner institutions (NUIM, UCD, DCU, UCC, UL, ITS, MIC, QUB, TCD).

These wider programmes provide a range of student opportunities across the institutions by supporting, enabling and coordinating a wide range of education and research activities on an inter-institutional basis. Thus, the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP) is an all-island platform of integrated, fundamental, applied and comparative social science research and graduate education focused upon the core themes of Knowledge, Innovation, Society and Space, coherently linking together significant and well-established centres of social science and humanities expertise across a partnership of nine third-level institutions and nineteen disciplines in order to understand the social, cultural and economic transformations shaping Ireland in the 21st Century. ISSP focuses on three inter-related research areas: (i) Innovation and the knowledge society/economy; (ii) Social inclusion and the creation of sustainable communities; (iii) Spatial strategies in promoting balanced development.

Students can also access modules that are part of the GREP in Politics, Sociology and Public Policy (SIF 2) and organised and delivered across partner institutions of the Dublin Region Higher Education Alliance (DRHEA) which include four universities and their linked colleges (DCU, NUIM, UCD and TCD) and four institutes of technology (DIT, IADT, ITB and ITT Dublin).