UCL, Bloomsbury and East London DTP: Pathway Leaders and Teams by Grouping
1) Health and Welfare
Demography
Pathway Leader:
Rebecca Sear <
Team members:
Lynda Clarke <
Description:
The UCL, Bloomsbury and East London DTP includes one of the UK’s leading centres for research in demography and population studies at LSHTM. The School is host to a highly interdisciplinary and internationally renowned group of researchers, who work on a wide range of population issues, in both low and high income contexts. We have strong programmes of research in maternal, reproductive and sexual health, the demographic impact and mathematical modelling of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, family demography, evolutionary demography, health inequalities, global health and the burden of disease. Our methods span quantitative techniques, including advanced demographic and statistical methods, and qualitative work; and we work on both basic and applied research.
Demography pathway students may take one of two routes - Demography or Reproductive & Sexual Health Research – which are available full-time or part-time, and as 1+3, +3 or +4 studentships. Additionally, the Demography route offers the opportunity for students to spend a year at the European Doctoral School of Demography ( which provides excellent training in the quantitative methods used in demography. We currently host several Advanced Quantitative Methods students, though not all our students do highly quantitative projects. While many demographers at the School are based in the Population Studies Group ( in the Department of Population Health, Demography pathway students have the opportunity to be supervised by relevant supervisors in other departments; there are also opportunities for students to be co-supervised by appropriate staff members at other institutions within the DTP. For the Demography pathway, initial applications need to be submitted by 9th January (see LSHTM website for initial application form, to be posted in November: Please contact pathway leader Dr Rebecca Sear () for more details.
Health and Wellbeing
Pathway Leader:
Andrew Hutchings <
Team members:
Simon Cohn <
Jonathan Smith <
Corinne Squire <
Description:
The Health and Wellbeing pathway involves LSHTM, Birkbeck and UEL and offers three training routes. The Health Economics and the Social Science Approaches in Public Health & Health Services Research routes are based at LSHTM and are available as 1+3, +3 or +4 studentships. The Psychological Approaches to Health & Wellbeing route is based at Birkbeck and 1+3 and +3 studentships are available. Co-supervision and training in qualitative methods, particularly narrative research, is available at UEL. LSHTM has a global reputation for public health research in high-, middle-, and low-income settings and the Faculty of Public Health and Policy – which is made up of three large interdisciplinary departments and over 150 social scientists – conducts a wide range of research using the full spectrum of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Large official research centres reflect the thematic orientation (e.g. the Centre for Evaluation, the Gender Violence and Health Centre). Birkbeck’sDepartment of Psychological Sciences complements the work conducted at LSHTM and has world class researchers in the psychology of health and wellbeing, offering a wide range of methodological expertise. Within the department there are two principal research groups in health and wellbeing. The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Research Group acts as a hub for a wide range of national and international activities and resources, and conducts research in the psychology of health and wellbeing. The Institute for the Study of Children, Families, and Social Issues conducts major funded evaluations of programmes and policy initiatives that address national and international priorities in education, child and family health, and parenting support aimed at providing evidence to inform social policy. The Centre for Narrative Research at UEL is the leading centre for narrative work in the social sciences. The centre runs ‘narrative methods’ training days and symposia and several Masters level modules in narrative research and analysis.
For LSHTM routes potential applicants should email . Other contacts will confirmed shortly.
Lifecourse and Social Epidemiology
Pathway Leader:
Anne
Team members:
Annie Britton <
Description:
Students in the Life Course and Social Epidemiology pathway will apply social epidemiological perspectives to the study of social, psychological and biological factors as they develop over the life course and how they contribute to health, disease and wellbeing. Students will use quantitative techniques to conduct secondary analysis of longitudinal cohort and panel studies. Studentships in this pathway will be based within the UCL Department of Epidemiology and Public Health ( The department is a global leader in social epidemiological research, as evidenced by our outstanding 2014 REF results (46% 4* with 160FTE staff submitted). We are a friendly, thriving multi-disciplinary departmentwhose aim is to develop a better understanding of health, wellbeing and prevention of ill health through rigorous population research and the development of research methodology. The department has a legacy of research into the social determinants of health and health inequalities and its interdisciplinary nature facilitates collaborative research encompassing social, health and biological perspectives. Students will work within one of the following research groups: the ESRC International Centre for Life Course Studies in Society & Health; the Whitehall II Study of civil servants; the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing (which houses the MRC National Health and Development Study 1946 birth cohort); the Central and Eastern Europe health research group (which houses the Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors in Eastern Europe study), and the Health and Social Surveys group (which houses the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, the census-based Longitudinal Study and the Health Surveys of England and Scotland). +3 and 1+3 studentships are available. Students who enter as 1+3 will study for the MSc in Health and Society: Social Epidemiology for the ‘1’ component of their 1+3 studentship.
Mental Health and Mental Health Care
Pathway Leader:
Claudia
Team members:
Sonia Johnson <
Description:
The UCL Division of Psychiatry is a major national and international centre for the study of aetiology and management of mental health problems. It has a large postgraduate community, with strong relationships between senior staff, postgraduate students and researchers. Our multidisciplinary group supervises quantitative and qualitative; social psychology, psychiatry, epidemiology and sociology studies.
Students will be supported to develop a doctoral project in one of our areas of expertise, which include:
- Development and testing of psychosocial interventions to improve outcomes, well-being and experiences of care among mental health service users
- Quality of life among adults with severe mental health problems, including the roles of housing, loneliness and social support, physical illness and violent victimisation and bullying.
- Social determinants of mental health and relationships between ethnic group, gender, sexuality and mental health.
- Quality of life, mental health, wellbeing and care and treatment of people with dementia and their family carers; and elder abuse.
- The clinical and social needs of people with advanced dementia and psychological treatment in advanced cancer.
Students who enter as 1+3 will study for one of our MScs [ PhD students will be supported by a supervisory panel of 3-4 academics with differing, relevant expertise, and an individual mentor.
How to apply: Send a recent cv (up to 4 A4 sides) and a personal statement explaining why you want to study for a PhD in the division of psychiatry, and outlining your proposed broad area of study to . Please contact Claudia at an early stage if you intend to submit an application. We would also encourage you to contact potential supervisors in your proposed area of study [ who are successful at this preliminary stage will be supported to develop a full proposal, for submission by 3/2/17.
2) Economic and quantitative analysis
Economics
Pathway Leaders:
Ian Preston <
Yunus Aksoy <
Team members:
Ron Smith >
Description:
The Department of Economics at University College London (UCL) and the Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics (EMS) at Birkbeck provide exceptionally strong and complementary expertise in the field of economics and finance, and have been centrally involved in the operation of the UCL and Bloomsbury DTCs.
Students should apply independently to programmes at UCL and at Birkbeck. Applications will be scrutinised within the two institutions prior to agreement on joint evaluation.
Birkbeck and UCL have a long-established practice of collaborating in PhD training through their Bloomsbury PhD programme, and aim to strengthen these links over the lifetime of the DTP, increasing the range of advanced training modules available to students of both institutions. Contributors from both institutions to teaching on the training pathways have backgrounds in economics, econometrics, statistics, mathematics and computational methods. Hence the Economics pathway will be able to provide substantial training to students in other pathways and groupings, such as Economic and Social History, Education, Health and Wellbeing, Interdisciplinary Area Studies, International Development, Politics, Psychology, Quantitative Social Science, and Social and Policy Studies of Energy and Environment. There is substantial scope for co-supervision, both within the pathway and with International Development, Psychology, and Quantitative Social Science. Birkbeck also has longstanding collaborative arrangements for advanced doctoral training with other London Colleges.
The Economics pathway offers three routes, all of which aim to provide research training at the international frontier, enabling graduates to conduct research of high academic merit and to make original contributions to the subject. All three routes are available in both 1+3 and +3 structures which formed part of provision within the UCL and Bloomsbury DTCs. The 1+3 Economics route at UCL provides core training through the MRes Economics, a highly structured programme with research training comparable to top-10 US economics departments. Entering students are required to hold an MSc in economics with substantial training in economic theory and methods, at a level equivalent to the UCL MSc in Economics/Economic Policy. The programme then provides substantial further subject-specific training in theory and methods, and does so for both full-time and part-time students. At Birkbeck, students on the 1+3 routes in Economics/Financial Economics and Finance/Mathematical Finance are trained in their first year through the MScs in Economics or Financial Economics; and Finance, Financial Engineering or Financial Risk Management respectively.
Quantitative Social Science
Pathway Leader:
Lorraine
Team members:
Ruth Keogh <
Description:
Both the Department of Social Science (DSS) at UCL IOE and the Department of Medical Statistics (DMS) at LSHTM have international reputations in applied quantitative and statistical methods for social sciences as well as health science data.
The QSS pathway offers two routes, Quantitative Research Methods, and Longitudinal Analysis and Design, which are based on provision within the current Bloomsbury DTC. As there, the first will be available in 1+3, +3 and +4 structures, with core training for the 1+3 and +4 options provided by the UCL IOE MSc in Quantitative Research Methods. The +4 structure will involve students taking the taught elements of the MSc without a dissertation, alongside the initial stages of their programme of doctoral research. The Longitudinal Analysis and Design route is only available as a +3 option due to the specifically medical orientation of the MSc in Medical Statistics.
Students should apply independently to programmes at UCL (Lorraine ) and at LSHTM (Ruth Keogh ). Applications will be scrutinised within the two institutions prior to agreement on joint evaluation.
DSS has a large group of researchers specialising in applying quantitative methods to large, complex datasets to inform policy on education, health, labour markets, thelifecourse and child/adult wellbeing (very broadly defined). Any topics in this broad area would be welcome. Staff have leading expertise in applied economics, sociology, psychology, epidemiology, social statistics, econometric and statistical modelling, and the techniques of policy evaluation. DSS hosts a number of research and resource centres. The Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) is an ESRC Resource Centre managing three of Britain’s world renowned birth cohorts: the 1958 National Child Development Study, the 1970 British Cohort Study, and the Millennium Cohort Study as well as the Next Steps cohort. It also hosts the ESRC funded Cohorts and Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources Programme (CLOSER), a collaboration between nine separate cohorts and longitudinal studies. DSS is also a partner in the ESRC funded Administrative Data Research Centre England (ADRCE) and also manages the collection and analysis of OECD’s TALIS and PISA surveys for England in 2013 and 2015 respectively.
At LSHTM, topics of expertise include missing data, longitudinal data, causal inference, and structural equation modelling. Staff make the major contribution to the Royal Statistical Society accredited MSc in Medical Statistics, which includes a broad quantitative methods core appropriate for both social and medical data. The MSc is part of the provision within the LSHTM/St Georges MRC DTP, but advanced quantitative courses from it will also be available to students on the QSS pathway. The Department is home to the Trials Coordination Group and the Centre for Statistical Methodology. DMS undertakes broad-based research in applied projects and in statistical methodology. Some of the key methodological work on missing data undertaken at LSHTM has used the cohort studies which are housed at UCL IOE in DSS. Much of the Department's research can be classified under four broad areas: statistical methodology, epidemiological statistics, clinical trials, and pharmaco-epidemiology.
Students in the QSS pathway will benefit from a stimulating research environment that offers a range of activities taking place in close geographical proximity. The pathway will draw on major strengths in methodology and application of quantitative methods, via collaboration of the QSS, CLOSER and CLS groups in the DSS at UCL IOE and the DMS at LSHTM. This expertise provides cutting-edge training, enabling students to address questions key to ESRC’s Research Challenges. Our student intake has a very broad range of prior quantitative skills. We recruit both students with only a modest base in statistics, thus playing a major training role in fields where such skills are in short supply in the social sciences (e.g. education and sociology), but at the same time cater for students with a strong maths or statistics background who wish to do social science or public health research, including on frontier methods. Students are almost always supervised by quantitative experts who come from different disciplines, which allows them to develop a very broad understanding of quantitative methods across the social sciences and public health. This means that they have a wide range of career options once they complete their PhD and this is not necessarily restricted to the field of their undergraduate studies. Our most recently completed DTC student has just received a prestigious job offer from the London School of Economics and has had 3 PhD papers accepted/published in high ranking social science journals.
Both QSS pathway routes and all structures are available to part-time students.
3) Cognition, language and learning
Education
Pathway Leader:
Claudia Lapping <
Team members:
Sarah
Will Gibson
Christine Han
Rob
Andrew Jenkins
Phil Jones
Maria
Jane Perryman
Tom
Description:
The study of education within the UCL, Bloomsbury and East London DTP takes place in a research rich environment combining methodological and conceptual innovation with engaged projects that have impact on local, national and international policy and practice. Much research activity is managed through more than 45 research centres. These include: the UCL Knowledge Lab (Leading interdisciplinary digital research and design in education); the Thomas Coram Research Unit (specialists in researching children and families that are most vulnerable to economic and social adversity); the Social Science Research Unit; the Centre for Global Higher Education; the Centre for Learning and Life Chances in the Knowledge Economies and Societies; the Centre for Holocaust Education; the Centre for Research and Evaluation in Muslim Education; the Development Education Research Centre; the International Centre for Education and Democratic Citizenship, the London Centre for Leadership and Learning, the Centre for Digital Arts Research in Education, and the Centre for Critical Education Policy Studies. This vast range of research provides opportunities for disciplinary and interdisciplinary doctoral work supported by the most relevant and expert supervision.
The Education pathway offers a single route, which will be available in 1+3, +3 and +4 structures (or part time equivalents). Students following a 1+3 structure will begin with the MRes in Educational and Social Research. The +4 structure will involve students taking only the taught elements of the MRes ESR, without a dissertation, within the Integrated MPhil/PhD programme. There is an extensive, well established Doctoral Training Programme for the later stages that includes more than 19 introductory courses and a similar number of advanced methodological and theoretical options.