About the new department
We are a unique interdisciplinary social science department working in collaboration with biomedical researchers and clinicians. We seek to understand the social determinants of health, illness and ageing, and the way in which advances in biomedicine and biotechnology are changing the nature of medical practice and conceptions of health and illness.
Our department
• has the international focus necessary to prepare students for work in our increasingly interdependent world
• offers an opportunity to combine a high level social science education with a special focus on key areas of health and illness, medical knowledge and clinical practice.
• equips students for a wide range of career options in the health services, in public health, in government and NGOs in the UK and elsewhere, and in the commercial medical and health sectors.
The Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine was established in 2011. Its aim is to confirm King’s as a world leader in social scientific approaches to health and medicine, with innovative research and research-led teaching as the basis for a significant input into global health policy.
The new department will establish a portfolio of research-led teaching at taught postgraduate and doctoral levels and, in the medium term, a flagship undergraduate programme. It will undertake the highest quality research on social science, health and medicine, placing this in a global context with a specific focus on questions of the social determinants of health inequality, and the role and implications of advances in biomedicine and biotechnology. Excellence in transdisciplinary and transnational social science research, grounded in a knowledge of history, law and philosophy, will be the basis of nationally and internationally recognised expertise, policy development and consultancy provided by the Department. The Department will bring together social scientists working on health and medicine across King’s and inspire creative interactions between the individuals and groups.
As part of this initiative, the new Department incorporates the Institute of Gerontology, one of the foremost gerontological research and teaching centres worldwide. As a centre of expertise in multi-disciplinary research into ageing, the Institute works with colleagues across King’s and in other institutions. Through its longstanding postgraduate programmes in Gerontology and its innovative intercalated BSc Gerontology, the Institute seeks to provide a multi-disciplinary advanced education in ageing and later life to students from a wide range of backgrounds.
Also incorporated is the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, the leading UK research centre on the social care workforce, which is a major part of the UK economy and social fabric of society. The Unit is funded by the Department of Health, under its Policy Research Programme, and undertakes policy work on commissioned projects as well as a range of other related studies for funders in the UK and internationally. The Unit is a core member of the NIHR School for Social Care Research, and plays an active part in it as well as receiving funding from this School for a range of world-class studies into practice and service delivery.
Through this initiative, King’s will place itself at the heart of global social science research and policy development on the social determinants of health inequalities, and the potential role of health care systems in addressing these, and link these with a programme of research on the nature, implications and translational possibilities of advanced biomedical research in disease prevention, regenerative medicine, and (given King’s leading position in this area) a special focus on mental health.
Teaching on our new master’s programmes will begin in October 2012, with a new Undergraduate programme coming on stream for recruitment in October 2013, together with two further master’s programmes. Our aim is, within three years, to create an interdisciplinary department of some twenty faculty, a portfolio of internationally excellent research and research staff, teaching at graduate level, with viable and functioning linkages across the College, across London, across the UK and globally. Within five years, this department will grow to some 30 to 40 faculty, teaching a dedicated undergraduate degree course, with an internationally successful portfolio of master's programmes attracting some 75-100 full time students each year, and a cohort of some 25 doctoral students, around 10 research fellows, and a major externally funded portfolio of research.
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