The University of Brighton welcomes PhD students to all aspects of its wide ranging and thriving research cultures in health and wellbeing, for which it draws on clinical, professional and sociological perspectives.
Our Health and wellbeing PhD and Resilience PhD students work across practice and theory in a range of health, public health, community-based and social care-related settings, and across statutory, NHS and/or third sector services.
We offer PhD study in both full and part-time modes and welcome students with significant professional experience, who are able to use and share the career skills they have developed, as well as those who have recently completed first degrees and wish to take advantage of their academic momentum.
Recent and current PhD students have been successful in obtaining studentships covering both fees and living costs through the University of Brighton’s involvement in the ESRC South Coast Doctoral Training Programme.
Our research utilises creative, community-engaged, participatory and inclusive methodologies such as co-production, as well as theory-informed qualitative health related research. You will be contributing throughout your studies to a research portfolio that has major impact on understanding the experiences of health, wellbeing and care and the provision and the systems that support it.
Expert supervision is offered, for example, across issues of social justice, resilience, public health, including inequalities in health and illness related to gender, age, sexuality including LGBTQ, disability, as well as living well with long term conditions, digital health, hospital, community and population based interventions, together with new theoretical perspectives, ethical concerns, and all aspects of professional healthcare and civil society work related to health and wellbeing. We have particular strengths in sexual health, mental health, gendered perspectives, diabetes, rehabilitation, growing older, as well as resilience with children and young people, adults and practitioner resilience.
Research into care, health and wellbeing examines interactions between lived experience, policy and practice. We understand that people, policies, protocols, norm and values, as well as different forms of knowledge and technical devices, are all necessary to the achievement of good health, wellbeing and care. We recognise care as central to people’s well-being and significant to both personal relationships and political decisions. We collaborate with users, providers and academics to ensure that our research informs current health and social care practice.
Your research as a Health and Wellbeing or Resilience PhD student will combine a range of theoretical and critical perspectives as well as bringing the skills and satisfactions that come with managing a major project and contributing to knowledge that will make a difference to individuals, families, communities and society.