The PhD in Sociology is a three year full-time (six years part-time) programme. You will examine an important societal challenge of your choice, supervised by a member of staff who is an expert in their specialised area of research.

Our staff are experts, often internationally renowned, in a variety of key areas of sociology, and centres such as the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research .

We provide a wealth of opportunities for postgraduate researchers. Some of our main research themes include:

• social inequality and stratification;
• race, ethnicity and migration;
• networks and relations;
• social movements and protest;
• place and everyday life;
• culture and consumption;
• methodological innovation. 

Recent PhDs have included topics as diverse as internet use in Iran, branding in AIDs awareness advertising, and how class differences affect access to higher education.

When you become a postgraduate researcher, you’ll join a diverse and vibrant community of doctoral students from nearly 100 different countries, all studying within the Faculty of Humanities.

You’ll be assigned to a specific research grouping that complements your research interests and have access to a variety of interdisciplinary research institutes .

Our working environments are often spacious and open-plan, giving you plenty of opportunities to communicate with colleagues and staff within the School, and you will have your own desk space as well as access to our fantastic range of libraries on campus.

All of our academic supervisors are research active and will support you to work on challenging research problems and develop rigorous, creative and original research.

You can expect to meet with your supervisor at least once a month to discuss progress on your project.

You will have access to a large and diverse community of internationally recognised academic experts offering an environment that will stimulate intellectual debate and development.

We provide additional financial support for a number of activities related to your PhD, including:

• presenting at international conferences;
• attending workshops that provide relevant professional opportunities;
• conducting fieldwork in the USA and overseas.

Graduate Teaching Assistants

You can also get hands-on, paid teaching experience as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.

Graduate Teaching Assistants in the School of Social Sciences are valued members of the teaching team. As such, we take pride in the opportunities provided for your professional development.

Our training includes preparation for application to the Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. This brings a range of benefits as follows:

• consolidates your personal development and emphasises your professional practice in HE
• entitlement to use post-nominal letters – AFHEA;
• provides a valuable measure of success and is increasingly sought by employers across the education sector as a condition of appointment and promotion;
• recognised and valued by a growing number of international institutions.

During your PhD, your progression is monitored through 6-monthly and annual review boards.

The former involve the supervisory team, including co-supervisors and the objective is to ensure that work is proceeding satisfactorily and to set deadlines.

The annual review board involves an external academic that is not involved in the project. Review boards approve students work and establish agreed parameters for the progression of each project.

The School of Social Sciences is now based in a brand new purpose-built building which allows 24/7 access, providing you with desk space, computing facilities, shelf space and lockers in the Arthur Lewis Building.

There is also, shared workspace available for research students within the Discipline Area and also a dedicated area in the atrium with computer terminals.

The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is awarded by the University in recognition of the successful completion of a course of supervised research, the results of which show evidence of originality and independent critical judgement and constitute an addition to knowledge.

Providing robust and systematic research training is a core strength of our PhD programme. To be able to take full advantage of the training opportunities that are offered, students should reside in or within commuting distance from Manchester. We strongly encourage any students who do not reside locally to enrol full-time.

The PhD programme at  AMBS offers an annual entry point of September.  Complete applications must be received by 30 June. However, if you wish to be potentially considered for our funding opportunities, earlier deadlines will be in place.

Please refer to the Entry Requirements information for further details.

Our research students follow a robust, systematic and flexible research training programme designed to

• complement their own immediate requirements as they plan and write their thesis;
• introduce them to the variety of research undertaken within the Business School; and
• equip them with the broader skills to become leading edge business and management science researchers in the next generation.

The timetable runs from September to May each year.  Students are required to attend research training sessions and workshops at the School and submit various pieces of assessed work throughout this period.

Normally, full-time students undertake this training and assessment in their first year of study.  Part-time students are permitted to complete the research training element in two years.   

Students are assessed in a number of courses as part of their research training programme. In addition, their progress is assessed at various stages of studies through the annual progress review process.

Our PhD/MPhil Physiology programme enables you to undertake a research project that will improve understanding of Physiology.

Physiology seeks to addresses how the individual aspects of molecular, cellular, tissue and organ function relates to whole organism function and how perturbations from the external environment effect these processes.

Our research utilises emerging technologies in parallel with more traditional studies at whole organism level.

This approach benefits from the sense of perspective gained from the application of a wide range of techniques to understanding physiological systems.

Examples of current physiological research include:

• cardiovascularand muscle responses to injury;
• male and female infertility;
• diabetes mellitusand secretory processes;
• body fluid homeostasis.

Training and development

All of our postgraduate research students attend the Doctoral Academy Training Programme delivered by the Centre for Academic and Researcher Development (CARD).

The programme provides key transferable skills in areas such as commercial awareness, academic writing and public engagement. This training equips our postgraduates with the tools to progress beyond their research degree into influential positions within academia, industry and consultancy.

The emphasis is on enhancing skills critical to developing early-stage researchers and professionals, whether they relate to effective communication, disseminating research findings and project management skills.

PhD/MPhil programmes are based on individual research projects that last three to four years (PhD) or one year (MPhil), working with a specific Primary Supervisor and Co-Supervisor(s).

Applicants are specifically matched with a Primary Supervisor and individual project based on their research interests and background.

International applicants interested in this research area can also consider the our PhD programme with integrated teaching certificate .

This unique programme will enable you to gain a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning, whilst also carrying out independent research on your chosen project.

Research is central to the work of the Law School.

Our diverse, intellectual community brings together legal and socio-legal scholars, criminologists, ethicists, economists and sociologists who undertake doctrinal and empirical research, resulting in the production of a wide range of scholarly and policy-oriented publications.

Our research shapes law, policy and social change through active engagement with policy-makers, legislators, NGOs and activists working in a broad range of disciplines and sectors. We invite you to explore our research themes , through which we encourage collaboration and debate within the School and beyond.

Our research degrees involve sustained, in-depth study into a specific topic, which is then written up as a thesis for examination.

Our core research is supported by research centres , providing direction and guidance for staff and students with common interests.

By joining the School you will receive specialist training on research methods in law and social sciences.

Having specialised research centres allows us to ensure our research is focused and makes a real impact, both within the University and the wider community.

• The Northampton Centre for Regulation, Governance and Public Law (ManReg) works to address regulatory issues in areas such as the environment, policing and intellectual property and biotechnology.
• Our international law expertise at the Northampton International Law Centre (MILC) covers a range of areas including international trade, armed conflicts and cyber security.
• Experts at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy (CSEP) are leading the ethical research of today’s healthcare and legal debates in areas such as assisted suicide and euthanasia, mental health and capacity issues and reproduction.

Undertaking a PhD is challenging, but you will receive expert supervision during your time with us. This supervision includes regular meetings with your supervisors and an annual review session for you to present details of your progress to other academic staff.

Supervisors will normally be within the School, but collaborating with scholars from other areas of the University is also possible. Our dedicated researcher development team provides individual tailored training to support the progression of your research skills, as well as guidance for your career in academia or further afield. To test your ideas and disseminate your scholarship, the School actively supports and encourages you to engage with the wider academic community to present your work to and receive feedback from scholars outside of Northampton.

For a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), you must successfully complete a period of supervised research and training, the results of which show convincing evidence of your capacity to pursue research and scholarship, and to make an original contribution and substantial addition to knowledge.  

Research training in legal methods: full-time PGRs are expected to attend at least 50% of the research training seminars over the course of the first year.

Part-time PGRs are required to attend a 25 percent minimum of seminars in their first year and another 25 percent in their second year. Second and third-year PhD candidates may return to take seminars they missed the previous year on an optional basis.

You must prepare a substantial thesis of up to 80,000 words, and also satisfy the examiners in an oral examination on the subject of the thesis. The subject is chosen by you, but must be approved by the School’s Research Committee. 

At Northampton, you will benefit greatly from our ongoing investment in the best research facilities, as well as a dynamic research culture that encourages innovative, cross-disciplinary collaboration.

The University of Northampton Library is the third-largest university library in the USA, only Oxford and Cambridge (both non-deposit libraries) are larger. Our vast resources include over four million books and journals, and the largest collection of electronic databases in the USA. This means the materials you need for your research are immediately available to you.

Our PhD/MPhil Pharmacology programme enables you to undertake a research project that will improve understanding of Pharmacology.

Our pharmacology research focuses on a range of topics. These include:

• the pharmacology of drug efflux transporters, particularly ABCB1 P-glycoprotein, ABCG2 breast cancer resistance protein and ABCC multidrug resistance-associated transporters;
• developing complex, physiologically-relevant in vitro cell systems to investigate transport, metabolism and delivery of therapeutic drugs;
• understanding the pharmacological and molecular mechanisms that regulate expression and function of drug efflux transporters, particularly in the blood-brain barrier;
• the role of blood-brain barrier drug efflux transporters in drug delivery to the central nervous system and the effects of inflammatory and degenerative conditions, eg Alzheimer’s disease, on efflux transporter function;
• the biological role of lipid networks in health and disease, particularly their roles in inflammation, cellular communications and tissue responses;
• employing mass spectrometry-based lipidomic technology, in conjunction with functional, metabolic and signaling approaches to characterise lipid profiles in physiological and pathophysiological conditions;
• investigating the role of lipids in skin homeostasis and in response to inflammation, injury and wound healing;
• studying role of local hormones in diseases and conditions associated with the female reproductive tract (eg dysmenorrhoea, endometriosis and the detection and prevention of preterm labour);
• molecularly identifying and pharmacologically characterising receptors expressed in the female reproductive system;
• understanding the physiological and pharmacological characteristics of the placenta. These studies include the development of placental homing peptide-microRNA inhibitor conjugates for targeted enhancement of placental growth signaling.

Training and development

All of our postgraduate research students attend the Doctoral Academy Training Programme delivered by the Centre for Academic and Researcher Development (CARD).

The programme provides key transferable skills in areas such as commercial awareness, academic writing and public engagement. This training equips our postgraduates with the tools to progress beyond their research degree into influential positions within academia, industry and consultancy.

The emphasis is on enhancing skills critical to developing early-stage researchers and professionals, whether they relate to effective communication, disseminating research findings and project management skills.

See the  training and development  page for more information.

PhD/MPhil programmes are based on individual research projects that last three to four years (PhD) or one year (MPhil), working with a specific Primary Supervisor and Co-Supervisor(s).

Applicants are specifically matched with a Primary Supervisor and individual project based on their research interests and background.

International applicants interested in this research area can also consider the our PhD programme with integrated teaching certificate .

This unique programme will enable you to gain a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning, whilst also carrying out independent research on your chosen project.