Newcastle University

Postgraduate Research Programmes

We offer a wide variety of taught (MA, MSc and Diploma) programmes for:

• Geography
• Politics
• Sociology

and research (MPhil and PhD) programmes, many of which are ESRC-recognised:

• 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 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 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.

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 pride ourselves on the quality of our extensive international networks and research interests, which stand at the leading edge of a wide range of national and international academic and policy debates. With over 80 academic staff and nearly 200 current postgraduates our School is an exciting place to research.

All postgraduate students are integrated into the School’s research culture and encouraged to participate in the activities of our various research clusters such as internal and external seminars, workshops and conferences. Students are also offered opportunities to develop their teaching skills and may have opportunities to become involved in other School research projects.

We also welcome applications from postgraduate research students already studying at other Universities but would like to visit Newcastle as an occasional postgraduate student, either on a self-funded basis or through our Visiting Postgraduate Fellowship scheme. In recent years, we have welcomed visiting PhD students from Italy, France, Finland, Australia and from other parts of the UK.

Our School is part of a consortium of universities forming the Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies (CRCEES), a multi-disciplinary centre funded by HEFCE, SHEFC, the ESRC and AHRC.

Students in the School play a key role in engaging with the wider community on the subject of the European Union through the seminars, debating and other activities of the Jean Monnet Centre.