Study
The Department provides research led teaching at doctoral, master's and undergraduate levels. Our teaching throughout is characterised by its international scope and its interdisciplinary character, bringing approaches from sociology, anthropology, history and science studies, and from bioethics, economics and social policy, to bear on crucial aspects of illness, medicine and healthcare as they affect individuals, families, communities and societies.
Key themes in our teaching include:
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Global health inequalities
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Mental health & psychiatry
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Biomedicine, bioscience, bioethics & society
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Social science & aging
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Emerging biotechnologies and their implications
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Health policy & health economics
Doctoral programme
We invite applications from suitably qualified candidates to join our lively, mutually supportive and growing community of doctoral students working on our key research themes. All our research students are co-located in our BIOS research lab with visiting researchers, research fellows and visiting professors. In addition to the many workshops, reading groups and other events organized with the Department, we are also active participants in the KISS-DTC providing leadership in relevant cross-cutting themes. Current research priorities include the social determinants of national and global inequalities in heath; social, ethical and political implications of developments in psychiatry and neuroscience, and the changing territory of mental health; social aspects and ethical aspects of advanced biomedicine and medical biotechnology, innovation and translation in genomics, stem cells and neuroscience; movements for 'people's health' in developing countries and the implications of transformations to new models of community healthcare; social, economic and policy consequences of ageing populations in developed and developing worlds; social and ethical consequences of capitalisation of healthcare; social and ethical implications of emerging biotechnologies and the global bioeconomy. MPhil / PhD Social Science, Health & Medicine.
Master's programmes
Four international master's programmes will be developed, each developing to an annual intake of some 25 FTE students, making a total of 100 FTE pgt in the Department at five years.
We are developing the following programmes:
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MSc Medicine, Science & Society addresses the nature and implications of developments in health and medicine in an international context and from a social science perspective. It examines the social, economic, political, legal and ethical implications of recent developments in advanced biomedicine and biotechnology and analyses the relations between developments in the laboratory and their impact in the clinic, in medical and health services, and in wider societies both in the developed and in the less developed regions of the world.
Find out more in the online prospectus
Three further Masters programmes are under development:
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MA Bioethics & Society (from October 2013)
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MSc Health Policy & Health Economics (from October 2013)
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MSc Global Health & Medicine (from October 2013)
For details of available Departmental Bursaries for the MSc Medicine, Science & Society, please click here.
Undergraduate teaching
A new integrated undergraduate programme in Social Science, Health & Medicine is being developed, which will combine teaching in the social sciences with that provided in the life sciences. The first intake for this new BSc in Health, Medicine and Society will be in October 2013; watch our website for further details.