Each of the scholarships available will cover UK tuition fees and an annual stipend based on the current ESRC studentship maintenance grant (£17,668 per annum in line with the UKRI rate).
The Tizard Studentship is offered as a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. So, in return for the award, you will be expected to do a limited amount of teaching within the department on a regular basis.
The joint CHSS/Tizard Studentship is offered as a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. So, in return for the award, you will be expected to do a limited amount of teaching within the department(s) on a regular basis.
The deadline for this scholarship has now passed.
Candidates will have obtained a First or good 2.1 undergraduate degree in a relevant subject and normally an MA/MSc at Merit or Distinction.
Tizard PhD Studentship
The Tizard Centre is one of the leading academic groups concerned with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Successful applicants will have the opportunity to work alongside academics renowned nationally and internationally for their contributions to the field. The Tizard Centre offers the following research programmes on a full or part-time basis:
For further information about the Tizard Centre, the academic staff and the research we undertake, please see our website.
We welcome applications concerning all aspects of the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, but the Tizard Centre academic staff named below are particularly interested in supervising research in the following specialist areas:
Dr Ciara Padden on behavioural approaches to supporting people with IDD, particularly: approaches to supporting adolescents and adults; skills teaching; organisational context of behaviour change; and staff/carer training and wellbeing.
Dr Paraskevi Triantafyllopoulou on health-related issues and psychological interventions for both children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (e.g., large scale GP health related data, sleep, cancer, eating disorders, obesity, A&E, vaccination etc.); educational settings/ approaches for autistic individuals; bullying; internet use and online safety; older adults and dementia; autism diagnosis.
Dr Magali Barnoux on people with IDD in the criminal justice system, in terms of offending behaviour, victims, and/or witnesses.
Dr Serena Tomlinson on support for children with IDD who display challenging behaviour, including positive behaviour support; support and / or training for family carers of people with IDD; co-production; early intervention; behavioural interventions for children with IDD; behavioural approaches in educational settings for children with IDD.
Joint CHSS/Tizard PhD Studentship
This year, we are offering an additional studentship supported by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey, Sussex (ARC KSS). The NIHR ARC KSS is one of 15 ARCs across England, with the aim of supporting applied health and care research that responds to, and meets, the needs of local populations and local health and care systems. The appointee will benefit from the support opportunities within the ARC KSS including its ARC KSS academy which supports researcher development. Proposals for this studentship linked to ARC KSS should be relevant to one or more of the below themes. Visit our website for more details of our research themes.
The ARC KSS supported studentship will be co-supervised by an academic from the Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS), visit the CHSS website to find out about our academic staff and the research we undertake.
The joint CHSS/Tizard Studentship is offered as a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. So, in return for the award, you will be expected to do a limited amount of teaching within the department(s) on a regular basis.
Please make clear in your cover letter if you are applying for the joint CHSS/Tizard Studentship.
The CHSS academic staff named below indicate their particular interests in relation to this joint PhD studentship:
Dr Vanessa Abrahamson - Occupational therapy, inter-disciplinary working and community rehabilitation. Qualitative and realist methodology. Realist projects include autism diagnosis for children and end-of-life care, both UK.
Dr Simon Bailey - Sociology of care and care work, qualitative methods, ethnography and rapid evaluation methods.
Dr Nadia Brooks - Particular interests in social and health care service provision, innovation and outcomes. My most recent research has focused on community models of support for older adults and people with intellectual disabilities.
Dr Julie MacInnes - Expertise in integrated care, particularly services for older people; frailty; implementation science and evaluation methods
To be considered for the Tizard PhD Scholarship, or the Tizard/CHSS joint PhD Scholarship you must do both of the following by the scholarship deadline:
1. Apply for a place to study one of the following programmes and provide all supporting documents by the scholarship deadline:
2. Submit a covering letter to lssjpgrfunding@kent.ac.uk by the Scholarship deadline
The Tizard Centre welcomes applications that are focussed just on intellectual disabilities, just on autism or on both.
It is important that, as well as your online application, you will need to send a covering letter. The aim of the PhD studentships is to enable the successful candidates to have research impact in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities. This could be kickstarting a new research career or accelerating a research career for an established practitioner.
The cover letter should therefore indicate how being awarded the PhD studentship fits into your medium/long term career aspirations. If you are shortlisted, you will be asked to speak about this at interview stage. Please send it to lssjpgrfunding@kent.ac.uk FAO Louise Bullen.
If you are interested in the joint CHSS/Tizard studentship, please contact Dr Melanie Rees-Roberts at M.Rees-Roberts@kent.ac.uk for an informal discussion.
If you would like to have an informal discussion about possible research topics within the intellectual and developmental disabilities field and/or the required teaching contribution, please contact: Professor Michelle McCarthy at M.McCarthy@kent.ac.uk.
Interviews will be held on Friday 10th February 2023.