This programme offers the chance to undertake a substantial piece of work that is worthy of publication and which makes an original contribution to the economic geography field. You will begin on the MPhil, and will need to meet certain requirements to be upgraded to PhD status. The PhD in Economic Geography aims to provide you with a rigorous and quantitative approach to the study of socio-economic phenomena that have a spatial and geographical nature, as well as their implications. This focus follows a general trend in the discipline and the growing need of policy advice to be solidly grounded in well-documented empirical regularities and properly established causal links. In order to satisfy these demands, the doctoral programme will give you advanced and up-to-date training in both traditional areas of economics – such as economic geography and spatial, urban and real estate economics – and more institutional approaches to these issues, such as those encompassed by regional science and local economic development. Moreover, the doctoral experience at LSE will expose you to an international, vibrant and multi-disciplinary research environment.