Course Overview

This scheme delivered by the North West Doctoral Training Centre draws upon the acknowledged strengths of Social Science and Social Statistics at the University, with the balance between the statistics and substantive components of the research tailored to the individual student's interests and background.

Via the doctoral programme, there is provision for joint supervision by the Department and a Social Science or other related department across the three North-West universities (Lancaster, Liverpool and Manchester), increasing the scope and potential focus of your research.

PhD topics currently being studied in this programme include: the development of social network models for understanding the delinquency of teenage gangs; user behaviour of social news websites; changing attitudes to gender roles; long term reconviction behaviours of sex offenders; modelling sentencing outcomes in England and Wales; methods for measuring health outcomes in children including reliability and validity; care pathways of looked-after children; and, factors associated with smoking among school-going male adolescents.

The programme is suitable for a wide range of purposes, notably: Social Science graduates interested in quantitative empirical work; Physical Science and Engineering graduates seeking social science conversion opportunities which make maximum use of their existing skills; Statistics graduates wishing to develop applicable expertise in social statistics; graduates from any discipline wishing to undertake Advanced Quantitative Training.

For those not ready to embark directly on PhD study, there is an option of beginning with the MRes in Quantitative Methods for Science, Social Science and Medicine before progressing to the PhD.