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The first step in your research degree is finding a supervisor.

You do not need to have a thesis title already decided, but you must have a specific area of research that you are interested in working on. It is essential that your supervisor is an expert in this field of interest.

You can view our academic staff and begin to make informal enquiries or look through our research clusters to see if we have suitable expertise for your field of interest.

If you are unsure about finding a supervisor please email srespgradmin@essex.ac.uk.

It is essential that you check the fees for your degree as these can vary depending on whether you are a Home or international student, and whether you are doing an MSD, a PhD, or a Professional Doctorate. All fees are are displayed on the relevant .

Our School does not offer funding for research degrees. However, you can view all offered by the university.

Instead of submitting a research proposal as part of your application, you will need to complete the Statement of Research Interest document (.docx), and a personal statement.

We will want to see that you have researched the school and staff research interests and demonstrate how these align with your interests, current skills, and experience.

If you have any questions about this process please email srespgradmin@essex.ac.uk.

Statement of interest guidance

Your statement of interest should be no more than 500 words (not including references) and should cover several key points:

1. What is your area of research interest and what research question do you wish to explore.
2. Has this research question been explored by other scholars? Who has investigated it and what is still unanswered or unexplained?
3. Show how this research question links to the work within the School of Sport, Rehabilitation & Exercise Sciences.
4. Show which academic staff in the school have research expertise that fits with your proposed area of research? Please name one or two members of academic staff who could serve as potential supervisors and explain why.
5. Show how your past education, other experiences, and skills have prepared you to be successful in this research degree.

When answering these questions a strong Statement of Interest should include:

• Work you have done in this area already, this includes any publications, presentations or conferences you may have been part of.
• Connect your area of interest to work being done within our School, and include specific staff member(s) and project(s).
• Refer to academic publications that have informed your interest. You will need to use correct citations and a reference list at the end (this will not be included in the word count).
• Mention the skills you have developed which you can bring to the project, and the skills/training you need to develop while you are here at the ºÚÁÏÍø.

Personal statement guidance

We also ask that you provide a short Personal Statement which can help us make our decision. Your personal statement should answer the following questions:

• Why do you want to study a postgraduate research degree in your chosen subject? What led you to this decision?
• Why do you want to study a postgraduate research degree at the ºÚÁÏÍø?
• What you hope to achieve in this research degree
• What personal, academic, and/or professional experiences, skills, and/or specific knowledge do you have that are relevant to postgraduate research degree?
• What are your career aims after completing your postgraduate research degree and how will having a postgraduate research degree help you?

Once you have completed the three previous steps you will be able to formally .

The takes approximately 20 minutes. You will need to complete sections including:

• The course you are applying for (such as PhD Physiotherapy) and the month you wish to start (normally January, April or October)
• Your supervisor
• Upload your CV
• Upload your statement of interest and your personal statement.
• Nominate your references.

Your application will be formally reviewed by the admissions team, the School PGR Director, and your prospective supervisor. As part of this step you will be invited to an interview (either in-person or through Zoom) to discuss your application, your background, and your area of interest.

Despite increased attention to female athlete welfare, gaps remain in how physiological and psychological aspects of the menstrual cycle are understood and integrated into training and performance strategies.

This project aims to address these gaps by examining the complex interaction between menstrual phases, menstrual related symptoms, health and performance in applied cricket environments.

Department: School of Sport, Rehabilitation and Exercise Sciences

Closing date: 30 October 2025

Your research degree is a significant investment in your professional future. That's why we offer several options for your research degree, ranging from a one-year Master of Science by Dissertation, to a six-year part-time Professional Doctorate.

Master of Science by Dissertation (MSD)

The Master of Science by Dissertation (MSD) involves a minimum of one year of full-time research followed by writing up a dissertation, which you will discuss in your viva.

An MSD is a great option if you need to develop your research skills before applying for a PhD.

PhD

A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree consists of a three-year (full-time) or six year (part-time) programme followed by the production of a doctoral thesis. You will defend your thesis during an oral exam known as a viva.

All PhD students are initially registered as MPhil/PhD students and are transferred to a PhD degree in the first half of the second year, subject to satisfactory progress.

Professional Doctorate

Professional Doctorates sit at the same level as a PhD, but the research topic will be set in a professional context. It combines your professional experience, for example as a registered physiotherapist, with research. It is often a requirement for senior leadership roles in fields aligned with medicine.

Because they are carried out alongside your professional practice, Professional Doctorates in our School are offered on a part-time basis only. You will deliver two portfolios of work demonstrating your professional development and complete a dissertation on an agreed research topic.

Part-time options

A research degree can be a significant commitment and for many this can be a barrier to undertaking further study.

All of our research degrees can be undertaken on a part-time basis, which doubles the standard time for study. This makes an MSD a two-year degree, while a PhD is completed in six years.

Although this may seem like a greater commitment than a full-time course, it means that you have wider scope to fit your research around other life commitments, such as caring responsibilities or employment.

Our research students have access to the same facilities as our academic staff. In our School this includes our Human Performance Unit, which has hosted Olympic athletes and local professional sports teams, a biomechanics lab, and performance analysis equipment in the Essex Sport Arena.

Our facilities are supported by our team of technicians, who are on hand to help you access equipment for research and teaching.

Along with the Essex Sport Arena, Colchester Campus has sports facilities ranging from several outdoor playing fields, to a synthetic turf pitch, tennis and squash courts, and the university gym. The Students’ Union is home to approximately 40 and a , and our School also has close working relationships with various local professional sports teams. All these relationships can help recruit suitable participants for your research.

Your research degree will develop your skills in scientific writing, research, data collection and analysis and presenting at conferences.

But whether you plan to remain in academia or are looking beyond to other roles, you will find that additional experience will give you a competitive edge in any job market.

To aid your skills development the university runs a professional development scheme called Proficio. All research students have a pot of funding (ranging from £1000 to £2500 depending on your degree type) which is used for courses that will help you increase your range of skills, such as engagement and impact, research management, and evaluation and problem solving.

Additionally, some of your Proficio funding is ringfenced for conference attendance. This is to ensure that all research students can attend conferences in their field, which are a vital part of research dissemination and networking.

Our School has a fantastic research degree completion rate. We achieve this by supporting you through each step of your degree, providing you with a clear path to success.

We help you identify specific milestones for each stage of your research degree to ensure you know where you are at and how you are progressing, so any issues can be identified and resolved early on.

We also work hard to develop an enthusiastic community of research students in our School, so you can provide each other with peer support and outlets to have some fun.

Our School runs activities throughout the year to promote research and knowledge sharing within the department, the wider university, and with other institutions.

We run regular research seminars during term time, where an external academic will be invited to discuss their latest work or upcoming paper to an audience that could include undergraduates as well as academics. We invite our research students to present their work in these seminars as this gives you an opportunity to practice public speaking in a familiar environment.

You will attend the annual School of Sport, Rehabilitation and Exercise Sciences research conference and share your work to the school. This is a chance to showcase your work to the whole school community.

We also encourage our research students to volunteer with activities such as the Pint of Science public engagement week.

While a three-year PhD or six-year Professional Doctorate may seem like a long time, it will go by quickly. Regular supervision will help you set realistic and achievable goals that will progress your research and writing at a suitable pace.

Your supervisor will meet with you regularly to review the progress of your research and help you plan your next steps, such as repeating experiments or working through related papers. You will be able to flag issues, review drafts of your thesis chapters, and confirm that you are on track to complete your work in time.

If your research is interdisciplinary then you can have a second supervisor from another department at our University. Our School works particularly closely with academics from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, the Department of Psychology, and the School of Health and Social Care. Your second supervisor can help give additional insight into your research and any issues or opportunities you might face.

You will also periodically have a progress review with a small panel consisting of your supervisors and an external expert from your field. These reviews will also ensure that you are on course to complete your research and write-up in the time given.

Completing a research degree does not mean you have to continue into an academic career path. A PhD or Professional Doctorate can open doors to a range of senior careers in the public and private sectors, such as policy advisors in central government or healthcare leadership roles.

The transferable skills that you will learn as part of your research journey will help you move into non-academic fields. You can start this process during your time at Essex as our Research Enterprise Office (REO) includes a postgraduate consultancy service that allows you to work with employers outside the university.

If you’re already considering a future in consultancy or freelance, or you’ve spotted a gap in a relevant market, then you may benefit from the support offered by the university’s Start-Up Hub, as well as the networking opportunities offered by events held at the Innovation Centre.