OCMS researchers are mature students whose average age is around 40. They have already proved themselves to their churches.
OCMS seeks to maintain and strengthen their relationship with Two-Thirds World institutions, both during and beyond their studies. So OCMS initiates a three-way contract between employing or sponsoring institution and the student for the duration of their research.
OCMS is an international community of mission activists throughout the world who seek to support and encourage each other. In joining OCMS a researcher becomes part of this family network which continues after their graduation.
OCMS highly values the perspectives and research resources that OCMS researchers have from their life and work in the Two-Thirds World. OCMS encourages researchers to use them in their thesis.
Tropical Interviewing
OCMS requires only minimal residence in Oxford: normally three months initially, then 6 weeks a year.
OCMS informs a researcher's employer of the commitments necessary for part-time research, including study of 1,000 hours a year, and institutes a three-way contract which gives clarity of purpose to all parties.
A Christian leader can still exercise significant responsibility in his or her employment. His family life is not totally disrupted either by the continual absence of a parent or by the whole family having to assimilate to life in England.
OCMS assists in finding temporary accommodation for the annual residence in Oxford. OCMS has access to ‘captive’ accommodation for 16 OCMS scholars within 100 yards, and other accommodation within a mile of OCMS.
OCMS assists and supports researcher's search for funding. We encourage researchers to learn the skills and processes of fundraising which will be needed in their later Christian ministry. OCMS has very limited scholarship funds which are usually only available to those who provide some funding from their own institution, resources, and efforts.
SUPERVISION
Currently, the research degrees programme at OCMS comprises 82 students; of these, 52 are registered with the Open University, the University of Leeds or the University of Wales. The remainder have been enrolled in OCMS to prepare research proposals prior to the formal process of registration at a British University.
Ten members of OCMS faculty provide initial mentoring support to all potential candidates and around 30 per cent of academic supervision (usually two supervisors per student) of registered students. These faculty include three Emeritus Professors (of the Universities of Oxford, Leeds and East Anglia) and former senior post-holders from theological colleges in Oxford, Kenya and India.
Other supervisors are drawn primarily on an individual basis from academics who hold established posts in leading British or overseas universities. In the United Kingdom, these include the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, London (Kings College and the London School of Economics), Durham, Manchester, Leeds , Bristol, Sheffield, Exeter and Keele. Overseas Universities include Princeton, Virginia Commonwealth, Eastern Baptist and Wheaton College in the United States and the Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil.
