The programme aims to facilitate the development of postgraduate nurses with a high level of scholarship and research expertise in nursing practice.

The programme is research-focused, and students learn primarily through conducting original research supervised by academic members of the School.  The programme offers two study streams – the MPhil stream and the PhD stream.  Students should indicate which stream they intend to pursue at the time of application.

For both study streams, students are required to complete 12 units of lecture courses, thesis research courses, and attend weekly research seminars.  They will be admitted to either the MPhil stream as MPhil students or the PhD stream as PhD (pre-candidacy) students.  The two streams are articulated, that means with Division Head’s approval, students can transfer from MPhil to PhD (pre-candidacy), and vice-versa.

MPhil Stream
Besides course requirements, an MPhil student is also required to submit a thesis on empirical research work.  The student must also attend an oral examination to present his/ her work to the thesis committee.

PhD Stream
All students will be admitted to the pre-candidacy stage.  Besides course requirements, they have to pass the candidacy requirements to proceed to the post-candidacy stage.  The candidacy requirements include passing a written examination and preparing a thesis proposal.  In order to obtain the PhD degree, a student (post-candidacy) must submit a doctoral thesis on original research work, and also attend an oral examination to present his/ her research to the thesis committee.

The Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme was established by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong in 2009 with an aim to attract the best and brightest students from all over the world to pursue their PhD studies in Hong Kong.  Among the eight University Grants Committee funded tertiary institutions, our School is the first academic department in nursing which has admitted PhD students via the HKPFS and has the highest number of HKPFS awardees.  Our HKPFS awardees had achieved exceptionally high academic standards and had received various professional and academic awards in national and regional contexts before entering our PhD in Nursing programme.

For sharing from the HKPFS awardees, please click HERE.

• MPhil Stream (Full-time): 2 years
• MPhil Stream (Part-time): 3 years
• PhD Stream (Full-time): 4 years or 3 years (for those with a research master's degree)
• PhD Stream (Part-time): 64 months or 48 months (for those with a research master's degree)

General Admission Requirements

• Have a master’s degree from a recognised university; or
• Graduated from a recognised university with a bachelor’s degree, normally achieving an average grade of not lower than “B” in undergraduate courses; or
• Graduated from an honours programme of a recognised university with a bachelor’s degree, normally with honours not lower than Second Class; or
• Completed a course of study in a tertiary educational institution and obtained professional or similar qualifications equivalent to an honours degree.

English Language Requirements

• Please refer to the website of Graduate School (https://www.gs.cuhk.edu.hk/admissions/admissions/requirements) for details.

Programme-specific Requirements

• MPhil Stream: A written statement of research interest with a brief outline of research proposal (600 words in English)
• PhD Stream: An outline research proposal with justification for the chosen area of research (1,000 words in English)

MPhil: 31 January (every year)
PhD: Open for application throughout the year. Admission interview starts from November each year.
PhD (for those applying through the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme): 1 December 2018
For details, please refer to the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme website:
https://cerg1.ugc.edu.hk/hkpfs/Explanatory/Explanatory_Init_App.jsp;jsessionid=288oPpH7MIHjoxmrVGGZzP9S.undefined

Tel: 3943 8173
Email: mphil-phd@nur.cuhk.edu.hk