Nearing the end of this PhD story
I have a little widget on my phone telling me how long to wait before the final act in my PhD story: a public defence of the work on Monday 1 September. It currently reads two months and eight days. This is all scheduled to take place in Tilburg, in The Netherlands, in the auditorium at Tilburg University. This here blog started life as a research and PhD resource, so as I get into the final 10 weeks it’s high time I got to recording and reflecting on how it’s all been going.
It’s important to note, from the off, that I have not yet visited Tilburg. I don’t know the University, the buildings, or the city. I don’t know many people there either, other than my supervisor and the administrative team who have helped me pull it all together over the past few months. But the flights are booked, accommodation is being reviewed, and nothing’s going to hold me back! (Apart from Covid, maybe. Or the various flight cancellations and strikes that are afflicting Europe this summer.)
Some numbers and details:
I have pulled together nine publications in total for this PhD. Most are solo-author pieces of work, with a couple of collaborations with colleagues. These publications are included in the full text, in Chapter 4.
Five empirical projects are covered by these publications. One based on “stakeholder” focused research, the other four making use of different forms of social network analysis.
They are accompanied by one overall PhD commentary. It covers the research aim, literature review, methodology overview, those nine publications, plus a chapter on my contributions to human knowledge, and then some final conclusions. This commentary is some 55,000 words or so, without the publications.
At the time of writing, the full thesis is 123,000 words long. Including references. It’s a monster.
That’s 322 pages, give or take.
Some 27 figures, tables and similar are included.
It’ll be 15 years from the first publication to the defence.
It’s a big piece of work. When compiled over so long a period though, I’ve been able to think things through, consider how I can develop the work, seek out opportunities, and more. Whereas an early piece of empirical research was effectively a proof of concept, similar work years later was more clearly defined and more effective as a result.
There’ll be time to explore this whole PhD story in the weeks ahead, looking at different chapters, bits of the process and so on. For now, it’s just good to know that things are coming together.
