King's College London

Introduction

The PhD in Interdisciplinary Policy Studies aims to foster your scholarly and career interests and to prepare you for the world of academic research and policy work. The programme is interdisciplinary and focuses on oriented towards questions of social justice and social transformation. Students are invited to draw on a range of social science and humanities perspectives and methodologies including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, history and applied philosophy as well as participatory, creative and arts-based methodologies.

Based in the Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) in the School of Education, Communication and Society (ECS) at King’s College London, you will join a vibrant research community and receive expert supervision from leading scholars. The programme’s distinctive interdisciplinary ethos enables you to explore complex issues through diverse theoretical, methodological and creative approaches.

Recent Research Projects

Current and former PhD students have worked on topics as diverse as gendered and intersectional approaches to humanitarianism; the visual politics of whiteness; the creation of queer communities through voluntary work; radical democratic approaches to pedagogy; the lived experience of intersex people; the care practices of adult nurses; the relationship between Blackness and emotions; social determinants of health for medical professionalism; the role of young people in government policy making; and the implications of the social determinants of health for medical professionalism.

Key benefits

• Join a vibrant research community of academics and doctoral researchers working on pressing issues including inequality, the future of work, activism and social movements, housing, migration, education, race and gender.

• Access extensive academic networks and research opportunities, including seminars, conferences, workshops and events across the faculty and wider King's community.

• Build a strong foundation in social science research through our initial training programme covering key theories, methodologies and approaches, alongside opportunities to engage with innovative and experimental forms of knowledge production.

• Enhance your professional and research skills through specialist training offered by the King's Doctoral College and the London Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Training Partnership (LISS-DTP) supporting your development for careers in academia, policy and beyond.

Who is this programme for?

The programme is designed for students who are interested in approaches to social and policy analysis that are both critical and problem-solving. Our interest in and interpretation of policy is rooted in a conception of policy as felt, made and remade in everyday life; that is, as co-constitutive of social worlds, subjectivities and identities. Our research illuminates social and policy processes and effects in a range of global and local contexts.