Research Programmes

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Doing an MPhil or a PhD is an excellent way of developing your research interests, skills and knowledge and, in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, you'll have some great opportunities to work closely with your chosen supervisory team and to participate in a range of other research training opportunities. As a PhD student in the School, you will participate in an integrated training programme enabling you not only to develop your own research project but also learn more about doing research in the social or physical sciences.

The School especially welcomes applicants who are keen to pursue interdisciplinary and international research. We are very enthusiastic about supervising students across the School's research disciplines, and with other parts of the University within and across the following research areas:

  • Environmental Change
  • Health and Society
  • Identities and Cultures
  • Social Transformations
  • Geographies of Development
  • Governance and Citizenship
  • Political and Social Theory

We offer a vibrant, inter-disciplinary and well resourced environment, in which postgraduates can pursue their studies in each of the School's three disciplines:

  • Geography - Geography at Newcastle is a premier research area providing a major focus for social science and physical geography research and teaching within the School. Since the last RAE, we have strengthened our position and maintained ourselves as one of the top research units in the country.
  • Politics -Politics at Newcastle, as well as being one of the leading centres in the country for the study of political theory and philosophy, is home to a large number of staff working in the field of comparative politics, broadly defined. More widely, the School contains a large number of staff teaching and producing cutting edge research on international politics.
  • Sociology - Sociology at Newcastle is at an exciting juncture in its history, being well into the process of being reconfigured as a core, expanding and research-led sociology unit. Since 2001, there has been a significant improvement on Sociology's already-strong performance on funding and rapid expansion of its postgraduate research community in particular.