Within the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, there is a breadth and depth of expertise and we can offer high-quality supervision across a wide range of social and public policy areas.
Overview
There are further details on the research activities and publications of individual members of staff and the School’s research units on the website. In addition to regular meetings with individual supervisors, all research students take a research training programme.
About the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR)
The School has a long and distinguished history, and is one of the largest and most successful social science research communities in Europe. An impressive 94% of our research-active staff submitted to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, with 99% of the research submitted judged to be of international quality.
The School supports a large and thriving postgraduate community and in 2010 distributed in excess of £100,000 in Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) quota awards, and in University and SSPSSR bursaries and scholarships to new students.
Colleagues specialise in research of international, comparative and theoretical significance, and we have collective strengths in the following areas: civil society, NGOs and the third sector; cross-national and European social policy; health, social care and health studies; work, employment and economic life; risk, ‘risk society’ and risk management; race, ethnicity and religion; social and public policy; sociology and the body; crime, culture and control; sociological theory and the culture of modernity.
National ratings
In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, research by the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research was ranked 2nd for research power in the UK. The School was also placed 3rd for research intensity, 5th for research impact and 5th for research quality.
An impressive 94% of our research-active staff submitted to the REF and 99% of our research was judged to be of international quality. The School’s environment was judged to be conducive to supporting the development of world-leading research, gaining the highest possible score of 100%.
Study support
Graduate School
The Graduate School ensures that the academic and social interests of postgraduate students are provided for within the University. It works alongside academic schools to support and develop internationally disctinctive, exciting and innovative programmes of study that combine academic excellence with an exceptional student experience and appropriate learning resources through the provision of:
- high-quality postgraduate facilities
- a supportive environment for the intellectual interests of our postgraduates
- an excellent Researcher Development Programme
- a strong framework of specialist support for our postgraduates across the University
- the cultivation of external links with Research Councils, graduate schools and other organisations, both nationally and internationally, to provide further funding and study opportunities.
For more details see our Graduate School page.
Postgraduate resources
The atmosphere in the School is informal and friendly and has at its centre a lively and diverse postgraduate community. The weekly staff/postgraduate seminar series is designed to introduce you to the work of major scholars from the UK and abroad, and there is also a wide range of other seminar and workshop series each academic year.
Our postgraduate students are given 24-hour access to dedicated office space within the department and are able to take advantage of excellent library and computing facilities. Where appropriate, research students are encouraged to expand their experience by teaching part-time in the School.
Dynamic publishing culture
Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, conference proceedings and books. Among others, they have recently contributed to: Journal of Social Policy; Journal of European Social Policy; Voluntas; Social Policy and Administration; Social Policy and Society. Details of recently published books can be found within our staff research interests.
Researcher Development Programme
Kent's Graduate School co-ordinates the Researcher Development Programme for research students, which includes workshops focused on research, specialist and transferable skills. The programme is mapped to the national Researcher Development Framework and covers a diverse range of topics, including subject-specific research skills, research management, personal effectiveness, communication skills, networking and teamworking, and career management skills.
Entry requirements
A good honours degree in the social sciences, an interest in the chosen topic area and a clear idea of your proposed thesis topic. In the case of research in health services and personal social services, we will also consider candidates with professional qualifications alone and/or relevant experience in the health service.
All applicants are considered on an individual basis and additional qualifications, professional qualifications and experience will also be taken into account when considering applications.
International students
Please see our International Student website for entry requirements by country and other relevant information for your country. Please note that international fee-paying students cannot undertake a part-time programme due to visa restrictions.
English language entry requirements
The University requires all non-native speakers of English to reach a minimum standard of proficiency in written and spoken English before beginning a postgraduate degree. Certain subjects require a higher level.
For detailed information see our English language requirements web pages.
Need help with English?
Please note that if you are required to meet an English language condition, we offer a number of pre-sessional courses in English for Academic Purposes through Kent International Pathways.
Research areas
The School and its Social Policy component have several research units which act as a focus for postgraduate students working within those areas. Other research interests within the School have been grouped under certain headings for guidance. However, there is a degree of overlap between groups and your research project does not have to fall neatly within any one of them.
Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS)
The Centre for Health Services Studies has a strong record in attracting research grants from the National Institute for Health Research, European Union Framework Programme, ESRC, Department of Health, as well as local health authorities and trusts. It is a designated NIHR Research Design Support Service. Particular areas of expertise include pragmatic trials, risk assessment and management, care of vulnerable adults including older people, and public health.
Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements
The Centre was established in 1992 in order to consolidate Kent’s leading position in the study in Britain of social and political movements. The Centre is actively involved in international networks of social movement researchers through its participation in the Erasmus network on ‘Social movements, conflict and political action’ and through its members’ activity in the relevant research committees of the International Sociological Association, the European Sociological Association, and the European Consortium for Political Research.
Civil Society, the Third Sector and the Centre for Philanthropy
The School has a strong and growing focus on the meanings, behaviours, resources and roles of civil society. Our interests in these areas focus on civil society and NGOs at both national and international levels: we analyse its contributions across a variety of fields, including environmental action, philanthropy, international development and social welfare; we engage with both contemporary and historic dimensions of key issues; and we deploy a range of disciplinary and methodological tools, drawing on researchers’ backgrounds in sociology, social policy and policy analysis.
Dedicated to an understanding of the social processes and cultural experiences by which people acquire moral dispositions to care for others, the Centre for Philanthropy offers a focal point for much of this work. Research is conducted into the ways in which our capacity for feelings are socially cultivated, corporately structured, politically mediated and economically expressed. The School is also linked to the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC), collaborating with the University of Birmingham on third sector theory and policy analysis.
Cross-national and European Social Policy
Using the framework of studying different welfare regimes, academic staff research a wide range of topics, while postgraduate students conduct research projects in every part of the world. Many of these projects involve overseas students making comparative studies involving their own country and European or UK services. The work of academic staff has resulted in a wide range of policy research related to Europe. Recent cross-national work has included projects examining home care services for older people, formal and informal social care systems, institutional change and the future of welfare reform, industrial relations, housing and community activism. Other interests include globalisation and welfare, and subsidiarity and convergence. Current or recent thesis topics include: democratisation and social policy in Korea; youth homelessness in Greece and the UK.
Health, Social Care and Health Studies
Present studies cover a range of issues within the fields of health services, social work and health policy. Particular interests include health care organisation and policy; risk assessment and management; primary care; public and user views of health care; health inequalities; occupational therapy; care work in health and social care; adoption; foster care; adult attachment theory; mental health; child protection; body work; psychoanalysis; race, ethnicity and health. Current or recent thesis topics include: women’s health in Uzbekistan; improving men’s health: the role of healthy living centres; women, the body and madness. This group hosts the national co-ordinator of the Research Development Initiative in Social Work.
Kent Crime and Justice Centre (KCJC)
KCJC is a collaboration of senior researchers at the University of Kent, based in the School, the Personal Social Services Research Unit and Kent Law School. It works in partnership with Kent Youth Offending Service and other criminal justice and non-governmental organisations. The core members have a multidisciplinary background, which includes sociology, economics, law and statistics, and expertise in sophisticated quantitative techniques, economic modelling and qualitative methods.
Centre for Child Protection
The team at the Centre for Child Protection is leading the way in developing new and innovative ways to deliver training and opportunities for simulated role play for professional development. The serious game concept offers a safe medium to explore and reflect upon child protection assessment. It offers professionals, at all stages of their careers, a unique way to evaluate real-life situations.
The first in the series of games, Rosie 2 promotes the theme of inter-professional practice by exploring the boundaries and challenges of a joint visit to the
family by a health visitor and social worker. Rosie 2 was followed by Visiting Elliot which explores a visit to a sex offender in the community. Zak, the third game in the series, focuses on an aspect of internet grooming.
The Centre for Child Protection’s series of serious game simulations provide research-based case studies and the opportunities to explore the complex dynamics involved in making professional assessments and decisions in these contexts.
Personal Social Services Research Unit
The PSSRU is the largest social services research unit in the UK, and operates at three sites: the University of Kent, the London School of Economics and the University of Manchester. Facilities include the Griffiths Library of Community Care, a reference library of more than 10,000 books, journals and other literature linked to the Unit’s field of study. Research focuses on needs, resources and outcomes in health and social care: major concerns are resourcing, equity and efficiency from the perspective of users, agencies and others. The Unit has developed a distinctive analytical framework called the ‘production of welfare approach’ to illuminate this research.
Race, Ethnicity and Religion
Though socially and discursively constructed, ‘race’ continues to be a key basis of social division and identification in British society, across Europe, and globally. Not only do many disparate ethnic minority groups continue to identify along ethnic, racial and religious lines, but ethnicity and race continue to shape a variety of outcomes, such as employment, educational attainment and senses of ‘belonging’. In this sense, ‘race’ and the recognition of difference continues to matter and is a key element in the School’s research interests.
Risk, ‘Risk Society’ and Risk Management
The critical analysis of risk and perceptions of risk have become central issues in the sociology of the ‘risk society’ and this is an important focus of activity in the School. Staff research includes work on health risks and their management, the implications of attitudes and behaviour concerning risk for the welfare state, the development of a culture of risk and anxiety, moral panics, risk and crime, risk and the life course, suffering and the perceptions of new communications technology.
Social and Public Policy, Sociology and the Body
Issues concerned with the body and embodiment have become core to the social sciences over the last 25 years, and the interests of this Group are dedicated to advancing this interdisciplinary field. Present and recent projects undertaken by Group members have revolved around: the development of corporeal realism; the sociology of suffering; the body in community care; the body in health and social care; clothing, the body and ageing; and the study of body pedagogics, as a new approach to the study of culture and society. The Group hosts the co-convenor of the British Sociological Association Study Group Ageing, the Body and Society.
Tizard Centre
The Tizard Centre runs an annual seminar series where staff or guest lecturers present the results of research or highlight recent developments in the field of social care. The Jim Mansell Memorial Lecture invites public figures or distinguished academics to discuss topics that could interest a wider audience. The Centre also publishes the Tizard Learning Disability Review (in conjunction with Emerald Publishing) to provide a source of
up-to-date information for professionals and carers.
The Tizard Centre provides consultancy to organisations in the statutory and independent sectors, both nationally and internationally, in diversified areas such as service assessment, person-centred approaches, active support and adult protection. The Centre also teaches a range of short courses, often in conjunction with other organisations.
Work, Employment and Economic Life
Interest in the issues surrounding work stretches across SSPSSR and current projects focus on work identity and meaning; work/life balance; age, generation and employment; visual representation of work; deindustrialisation; organisational sociology; gender, ethnicity and class at work; historiography of work sociology; moral economy; workplace ethnography and oral histories.
Staff research interests
Kent’s world-class academics provide research students with excellent supervision. The academic staff in this school and their research interests are shown below. You are strongly encouraged to contact the school to discuss your proposed research and potential supervision prior to making an application. Please note, it is possible for students to be supervised by a member of academic staff from any of Kent’s schools, providing their expertise matches your research interests. Use our ‘find a supervisor’ search to search by staff member or keyword.
Full details of staff research interests can be found on the School's website.
Professor Michael Calnan: Professor of Medical Sociology
Diffusion and innovation in health care and technology; trust and health care; dignity and the provision of health and social care for older people.
View ProfileProfessor Simon Coulton: Professor of Health Services Research
Deafness in babies and post-natal screening; management of back pain; self-management in heart failure.
View ProfileProfessor Frank Furedi: Professor of Sociology
The different manifestations of contemporary risk consciousness; the relationship between the diminishing of cultural authority and society’s capacity to manage risk and change; the sociology of rumour and dissident knowledge; sociology of fear and terrorism.
View ProfileProfessor Chris Hale: Professor of Criminology
Criminological research: the application of econometric techniques to various topics, including the relationship of both crime and punishment to social and economic change and to the study of fear of crime.
View ProfileProfessor Roger Matthews: Professor of Criminology
Policing; drugs policy; prostitution; critical criminology.
View ProfileProfessor Alisoun J Milne: Professor of Social Gerontology and Social Work
Mental health in later life; older carers; dementia carers; service development.
View ProfileProfessor Stephen Peckham: Professor of Health Policy; Director of CHSS
Health policy analysis; organisational and service delivery; primary care and public health; evaluation of new clinical commissioning groups; patient and public involvement in commissioning; exploring the public health role of general practice.
View ProfileProfessor Christopher Rootes: Professor of Environmental Politics and Political Sociology
Environmental protest, environmental movements, the interactions between environmental campaigners and industry, government and governmental agencies; cross-nationally comparative research on protest, social movements and political participation; the formation and implementation of environmental policy, particularly in respect of climate change.
View ProfileProfessor David Shemmings: Professor of Child Protection Research
Adult attachment theory; safeguarding children and child protection; contemporary quantitative research methods.
View ProfileProfessor Miri Song: Professor of Sociology
Ethnic identity; race; racism; immigrant adaptation; ‘mixed race’.
View ProfileProfessor Tim Strangleman: Professor of Sociology
Work identity and meaning; nostalgia; heritage; industrial decline; masculinity and age; historical sociology; oral histories; life histories; visual methods and approaches.
View ProfileProfessor Alex Stevens: Professor of Criminal Justice; Deputy Head of School
The politics and practice of criminal justice, with a specific emphasis on national and international drug policy, youth justice, gangs, organised crime, probation practice and the use of evidence in policymaking.
View ProfileProfessor Peter Taylor-Gooby: Research Professor of Social Policy
Austerity and the impact of the financial crisis; comparative cross-national work on European social policy; theoretical developments in social policy; managing social risk.
View ProfileProfessor Julia Twigg: Professor of Social Policy and Sociology
The body, and temporal and spatial ordering; age and ageing; disability; medicine and health care; food, diet and health; home care; public and private space; care work and the care workforce; the sociology of food.
View ProfileProfessor Sarah Vickerstaff: Professor of Work and Employment
The relationship between paid work and the life course; the employability of older workers; the apprentice model of vocational training and intermediate skills acquisition and the transition from school to work.
View ProfileProfessor Jenny Billings: Reader in Applied Health Research
Health and social care services research and evaluation; vulnerable groups; sustainable service developments; teenage pregnancy and continence services.
View ProfileProfessor Adam Burgess: Professor of Risk Research
Contemporary understanding of risk in Western societies; the impact of health risks and neuroses upon individuals and society; the spread of generic risk assessment and management to every walk of professional life; precaution and the study of rumours and urban legends.
View ProfileDr Derek Kirton: Reader in Social Policy and Social Work
Child welfare policy and practice, and especially the areas of adoption and foster care; remuneration for foster carers; the later life experiences of people growing up in the care system.
View ProfileProfessor Ellie Lee: Professor of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Health policy, in particular reproductive health and parent-child relations; contraception; abortion; assisted conception; ‘designer babies’; maternal mental health; infant feeding.
View ProfileDr Kate Bradley: Senior Lecturer in Social History and Social Policy
History of social policy; charities; youth crime, justice and welfare.
View ProfileDr Simon Cottee: Senior Lecturer in Criminology
Sociology of crime and deviance; sociology of intellectuals; terrorism and apostasy; coercion; political violence.
View ProfileDr Jeremy Kendall: Senior Lecturer in Social Policy
The voluntary sector in the UK; the welfare mix, particularly the motivations and behaviours of providers of care for older people in the UK; British social policy in general; the European dimension of public policy, particularly social policy, towards organised civil society.
View ProfileDr Anne Logan: Senior Lecturer in Social Science
History of feminism; history of criminal justice; gender, voluntary work and professionalism.
View ProfileDr Dawn Lyon: Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Sociology of work; gender; embodiment; visual and sensory sociology.
View ProfileDr Balihar Sanghera: Senior Lecturer in Sociology; Director of Graduate Studies (Taught)
Ethics, moral economy and sentiments; political economy; philanthropy; post-soviet Kyrgyzstan.
View ProfileDr Joanne Warner: Senior Lecturer in Social Work; Director of Studies for MA Social Work
Sociological approaches to risk, care, mental health and social welfare.
View ProfileDr Ben Baumberg Geiger: Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy
Disability, the nature of work and the benefits system; the relationship of evidence, policy and critique; attitudes to tax/benefits; theorising inequality; alcohol (and other addictions) policy, especially pleasure and corporate social responsibility.
View ProfileDr Heejung Chung: Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy
Welfare state and labour markets; gender; work-life balance and work-family conflict; labour market flexibility; working-time flexibility; employment insecurity.
View ProfileDr Lavinia Mitton: Senior Lecturer in Social Policy
Government tax and social security policies, and how they affect people, in particular with respect to the family and income inequality; the history of social policy and long-term change in economic and social conditions.
View ProfileFees
The 2019/20 annual tuition fees for Home/EU PG Research programmes have not yet been set by the Research Councils UK. This is ordinarily announced in March.
General additional costs
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Funding
Search our scholarships finder for possible funding opportunities. You may find it helpful to look at both:
- University and external funds
- Scholarships specific to the academic school delivering this programme.