Welcome to the DCGC website

DCGC is a three-year interdisciplinary, collaborative PhD-programme which combines the expertise and strengths of four universities with established reputations in the field.

Internationally prestigious Excellence Programme

Funded by the European Union as an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate and recognised as delivering training of outstanding quality, the DCGC brings together the expertise of four leading universities:

• The University of Kent, UK
• Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Hungary
• The University of Hamburg, Germany
• Utrecht University, Netherlands.
  
  

Working in the newly emerging fields of cultural criminology, global criminology, the criminology of security, human rights and social exclusion, the programme supervises critical, leading-edge doctoral research and provides a broad training that combines international mobility, an integrated structure and individually tailored flexibility.

Mobility....

You conduct research in one of four thematic areas and are supervised by an international team based in your two chosen universities, spending at least one year in each.

Associate partners

The DCGC has established partnerships with associate members outside the university sector, drawn from fields directly relevant to its research themes. These associates are also involved in the programme and provide candidates with valuable research internship opportunities. Associates include a wide range of organisations involved in civil society action (mainly NGOs), policymaking, crime control and criminal justice. In addition we have university associate partners in countries outside Europe, which may act as bases for fieldwork in particular projects.

Research excellence

The DCGC is staffed with academics who have conducted high-quality, world-renowned research. All four partners in the consortium are nationally and internationally recognised centres of research excellence, providing a complementary and interdisciplinary combination of both social science and law-based dimensions of criminology. The DCGC partner universities provide a rich and diverse research environment, promoting the development and exchange of ideas. Each institution organises frequent research seminars, workshops, academic events and international conferences which facilitate regular contact with world-leading researchers, visiting scholars and peers from a wide range of disciplines to help develop global career and social networks. Global, transnational and cultural themes run across all four centres: in crime, control and social exclusion (ELTE and Kent); in the drug trade and its cultures (Kent, Utrecht, Hamburg); in the links between the local and the global in youth crime, culture and control (Kent, Hamburg, Utrecht); in the trade-offs between security measures and human rights (Hamburg, ELTE); in environmental damage and the associated blurred boundaries between crime and social harm (Utrecht); and in the relationship between migration, social and legal exclusion.

Research themes

As a doctoral researcher, you conduct critical research with identified impact in one of four main research themes:

• Crime, Media and Culture

Critical studies of crime and control at two levels, as experienced in local cultures, and as felt and understood in different forms of globalised media and communications; the interaction between these two levels; the relationships between crime and the mainstream cultural values, including those of consumerism and popular fiction; emotions such as fear and hatred; cultural approaches to the study of illicit drugs, young people’s transgression; violence; terrorism; as well as corporate/white-collar, organised and ‘green’ crime.

• Criminal Justice Policy, Social Change and Exclusion

Critical studies of the effects of social change on such problems as criminality, social and legal exclusion, and responses in crime policy, criminal justice, human rights policy and crime control. This may include the problems of young people and the relationship between exclusion and transgression. The issue of ‘transitional justice’, where democratic regimes deal with the human rights violations of their predecessors, has a significance in many parts of the world.

• Globalisation, Transnational Crime and Control

Critical studies of the effects of globalisation on crime, social harm, criminal justice, and crime control. Key areas include: the links between local cultures and global circuits in, for example, illegal drugs and human trafficking, and the networks that sustain them; environmental harm, as well as the effects of these problems on national and international policy; the transnational dimensions of corporate, state, political and organised crime.

• Human Rights and International Security

Critical studies of the impacts of terrorism and migration on security policy; the effects of a changing security landscape on human rights and traditional criminal justice concepts, as well as on criminology as a discipline; the effects of the internationalisation of crime, and criminal and security policy on human rights; the implications for the study of European and international human rights conventions and their relationship to wider concepts of ‘rights’ in the economic, social and cultural spheres.

Enhanced career prospects

Every aspect of the DCGC training is oriented to enhance the employment prospects of successful doctoral graduates. The programme allows you to develop a politically engaged, international understanding of crime, social harm and crime control, and prepares you to work in a broad range of employment areas concerned with understanding, preventing and responding to crime in a way that takes account of global, cultural and political contexts. Our doctoral trainees are recognised as early career researchers who develop the knowledge and skills necessary to work in both academic and non- academic research and policy environments, including universities, research institutes, policy bodies, civil society organisations and criminal justice agencies. We expect successful DCGC graduates to publish research in academic (peer-reviewed journal article and monograph forms) and in other media aimed at policy audiences and the general public. The international mobility and cultural perspectives of the programme ensure that graduates also bring considerable added value to any organisation through their qualities, skills and competence as well as their innovative, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural perspectives.  

For more information, please contact P.Carney@kent.ac.uk.  

 

Announcements

• DCGC Research Themes

  Crime, Media and Culture
  Critical studies of crime and control at two levels, as experienced in local cultures, and as felt and understood in different forms of globalised media and communications; the interaction between these two levels; the relationships between crime and the mainstream cultural values, including those of consumerism and popular fiction; emotions such as fear and hatred; cultural approaches to the study of illicit drugs, young people's transgression, violence, terrorism, as well as corporate/white-collar, organised and 'green' crime.

  Criminal Justice Policy, Social Change and Exclusion
  Critical studies of the effects of social change on such problems as criminality, social and legal exclusion, and responses in crime policy, criminal justice, human rights policy and crime control. This may include the problems of young people and the relationship between exclusion and transgression. The issue of 'transitional justice', where democratic regimes deal with the human rights violations of their predecessors, has a significance in many parts of the world.

  Globalisation, Transnational Crime and Control
  Critical studies of the effects of globalisation on crime, social harm, criminal justice, and crime control. Key areas include: the links between local cultures and global circuits in, for example, illegal drugs and human trafficking, and the networks that sustain them; environmental harm, as well as the effects of these problems on national and international policy; the transnational dimensions of corporate, state, political and organised crime.

  Human Rights and International Security
  Critical studies of the impacts of terrorism and migration on security policy; the effects of a changing security landscape on human rights and traditional criminal justice concepts, as well as on criminology as a discipline; the effects of the internationalisation of crime, and criminal and security policy on human rights; the implications for the study of European and international human rights conventions and their relationship to wider concepts of 'rights' in the economic, social and cultural spheres.

Important dates

For all Erasmus Mundus Fellowship and Externally-Funded applications, the first DCGC application deadline is 8th January 2013, 23.59pm GMT. (This is for entry to the DCGC in September 2013.)
Please note: If you making an Externally-Funded application (i.e. you are applying for another scholarship/grant/award either in addition to, or instead of, a Fellowship) and the deadline date is prior to our closing date for DCGC applications then we can send an early letter (a ‘pre-acceptance’ or ‘eligibility’ letter) to your scholarship/grant/award organisation confirming that we have received an eligible application. By ‘eligible application’ we mean an application that fulfils all the necessary requirements (including a suitable research proposal that fits within our themes) to be entered into our application process. Please contact us to arrange this letter
Since the number of Fellowships is limited, all applicants for Fellowships are strongly encouraged to apply also for External Funding  (see ‘Fees and Funding’ page on this website).
No applications for Fellowships will be accepted after the first application deadline (8th January 2013).
If you are an Externally-Funded applicant and you wish to be considered after the first application deadline closes, please get in touch with us. If there are places left on the programme, then a second round of applications will take place.
For details about application principles and processes, go to ‘How to Apply’