Our PhD students benefit from a range of research events and activities including those hosted by the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society.PhD study
We offer you the chance to undertake advanced research in a friendly, inter-disciplinary, collaborative, and highly productive community. We have a range of interests that cut across themes in the philosophy of science and social science; culture, science and technology; anthropology; and cultural sociology and support PhD students working across a diverse range of topics. The ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society provides an internationally recognised centre for the philosophical and social analysis of genetics and the life sciences. Find out more about our MPhil/PhD degrees.
Why study with us?
- We are highly successful at obtaining research funding with grants totalling over £6.5 million in the last five years
- Good opportunities for PhD funding
- Students are encouraged and financially supported to give papers at major conferences which most have achieved by year two (students have presented on main panels at ASA, BSA, ISA, ESA and many others)
- Our students have a good track record in successfully following academic careers and have taken up lectureships at universities (such as Stirling, Lancaster and the University of Florida) as well as a range of research posts in centres (such as the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris).
- The ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society provides an internationally recognised environment for studying the meaning and social and philosophical implications of contemporary genomic science and other aspects of science
- Over 50% of our current PhD students have published articles in professional peer reviewed journals (one PhD student is the Editor of British Journal of Music Therapy). Contributions have been made to publicaions such as Musicae Scientifae, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences and Cambridge University Press
- Department staff have won Major prizes and honourable mentions from Leverhulme, American Sociological Association, Uppsala University, the Italian Government, Harvard, the European Society for the History of Economic Thought, Cornell University, the Australian Research Council Federation Fellows Programme, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford
- Our students run their own journal Music and Arts in Action
The department has some world-class scholars who are fully committed to the academic work and progress of their PhD students.
Dr Adam Bostanci
PHG Foundation Lecturer, University of Cambridge
I advise research students in the social sciences to work hard not only to shape up a professional career but also to change the world for the better. We are going through a difficult process of social and economic change globally. I do believe social scientists are well equipped to make sense of this process and can contribute to building the foundations of a more equitable and rewarding human experience.
Dr Marco Liverani
Overseas Research Fellow, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
PhD in Sociology, University of Exeter, 2011.
