Sheffield Methods Institute doctoral opportunities

Complete a PhD with the Sheffield Methods Institute (SMI) and you’ll discover what it means to be multidisciplinary.

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On

The SMI offers you the opportunity to do a PhD in interdisciplinary social science subjects that don’t fit neatly into a single departmental ‘box’. 

How we rank

  • The University of Sheffield is a member of the Russell Group of 24 research-intensive universities.
  • 92 per cent of research and its real-world impact at the University of Sheffield has been rated as 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'.

Our research

Our work is summarised into the five themes listed below - each colleague has a particular research interest within these themes.

If you are interested in doing a PhD based around one of these themes, or the research mentioned in one of the academic staff profiles, get in touch with us to discuss it further.

Whatever stage of your research career, we would be interested to discuss with you how the SMI can help you achieve your future social science research goals.

Inequality

Andy Dickerson

Andy’s research in this area has primarily focused on the impact of growing up in poverty on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development, and on child obesity. This research has also examined what it means to be in poverty, and whether our conventional income-based measures can adequately capture the experience of being poor.

Andrew Bell

Much of Andy’s work focuses on inequalities broadly defined: that is, why do individuals have different levels of mental health, or income, or education. What multi-dimensional factors cause these differences to occur? This can be both at the individual or higher spatial levels (eg inequalities between neighbourhoods)

Elisabeth Garratt

Beth’s work generally falls within the theme of inequality: her PhD explored income-based mental health inequalities in UK children and their parents. Before this she contributed to research projects on multiple deprivation and worklessness.  She has also undertaken work into the childhood precursors of adult success for the Social Mobility Commission as well as also undertaking quantitative and mixed-methods research on UK food poverty.

Will Mason

Will’s research interests focus on the production and experience of inequality in contemporary society. His studies address a range of themes including community, youth, race, consumption, identities, crime and deviance. Much of his work has been rooted in community settings, though he also has experience of organisational research, within youth work and social work settings.

Siobhan McAndrew

Siobhan's research has considered gender and network-related differences in music composition and performance selected as useful examples of highly-competitive niche occupations. She has also considered gender differences in beliefs and perceptions relating to religion and health behaviours. More broadly, she is interested in how differences in housing tenure affect political attitudes.

Kate Reed

Kate’s research includes a focus on inequality in health, exploring disparities in health according to issues of social class, gender and race and ethnicity. Her interests in this area lie particularly with health technology and reproductive health. 

Mark Taylor

Mark’s work on the sociology of culture includes a strong focus on inequality, aiming to understand both attendance and participation in culture, and cultural work, with reference to contemporary social inequalities. He also works on attitudes investigating how people account for and explain social inequalities.

Abigail Tazzyman

Much of Abigail’s research investigates inequality and uses a feminist theoretical perspective. Her PhD considered gendered, classed and racial inequalities in appearance expectations and the implications for education and work experience across the life course. She has also investigated the representation of women on the UK school curriculum as PI for an outreach programme. Her most recent work has focused on inequality and identity within workforces, organisations and professions.

Calum Webb

Calum Webb’s research explores socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in the child welfare system and how they relate to social policy and the funding of children’s services. His work highlights that children from the poorest neighbourhoods in England are ten times more likely to be in the children’s social care system, and that the most deprived local authorities in England have seen the largest cuts to their children’s services funding since 2010.

Lauren White 

Lauren's research focuses on the everyday experiences of inequality with a particular emphasis on health, illness, and disability. This includes everyday barriers which affect access and participation and how ableism and disablism shape diverse social bodies. This also includes an acknowledgement of how these inequalities intersect with gender, race, class, age and place.

Social justice and inclusion

Andy Dickerson

The role of education and skills in determining individuals’ labour market outcomes is a key element of Andy’s research, which is partly sponsored by the UK Department for Education. This includes the analysis of gender differentials in both education and earnings, the importance of peer groups at school, and the socioeconomic factors which impact on the transition from education into work.

Elisabeth Garratt

Beth’s recent research into homelessness has explored the theme of inclusion in relation to housing status and access to work.

Will Mason

Will’s work seeks to reflect principles of social justice and inclusivity. Social deprivation and the experiential dimensions of associated hardships have featured in much of his work, as have the processes by which inequalities are constructed and reproduced by powerful groups.

Siobhan McAndrew

Siobhan is interested in reducing inequalities in civic and labour force participation, particularly those relating political and cultural socialisation, and promoting public health messaging to protect the vulnerable. She supervises Samir Sweida-Metwally's doctoral research into religious inequalities in employment and job quality.

Aneta Piekut

Along with Gwilym Pryce, Aneta looks at the role of spatial segregation and ‘social frontiers’ for shaping community cohesion, crime levels and individual life outcomes (eg education, social mobility, integration of immigrants). Aneta works with colleagues on ongoing mixed-methods research, especially the ‘Living in Difference’ project data looking at generations in Poland and responses to difference.

Kate Reed

Kate works collaboratively with charities, and public and private sector organisations to address issues relating to injustice in healthcare.

Mark Taylor

Mark collaborates closely with a charity that aims to challenge and confront issues of inequality in the arts and culture.

Abigail Tazzyman

Abigail’s work on workforce, organisations and professions engages with issues of inclusion in regards to workforce makeup, job quality and career progression. She has also looked at inclusion and access in regards to health and social care provision and quality of care provided.

Calum Webb

Is it fair that children from some ethnic minority groups, or children living in poverty, are more likely to be taken into state care than others? What implications does this have for children’s rights to family life? Calum Webb’s research addresses these injustices and how they may be perpetuated through social structures and policies. He has created data visualisation tools to help turn this research into action that promotes social change.

Lauren White

Lauren's research is driven by a commitment to social justice and social change. She seeks to centre inclusion in research methods and design and communicating social research, as well as substantively striving for inclusion for those who are excluded in the context of health, illness, and disability.

Mobility and migration

Andy Dickerson

Two of Andy’s current PhD students are examining different issues in mobility. The first is looking at intergenerational income mobility and its determinants. The second is examining intergenerational education mobility. In both cases, the role of parental background, including their income and education, is paramount. Advantage (and disadvantage) is inherited.

Andrew Bell

Andy is working on a paper with Aneta, looking at age, period and cohort effects on attitudes towards migration. He is also interested in what happens when people move into neighbourhoods - as opposed to, what happens when neighbourhoods change.

Elisabeth Garratt

Beth’s recent research into homelessness has explored the theme of mobility in relation to housing and homelessness experiences.

Will Mason

Migration connects to Will’s research in that, much of his work engages with diasporic communities who share complex migration histories. Will’s work has explored the identity politics and inequalities faced by minority groups, particularly young people.

Siobhan McAndrew

Siobhan is interested in differences between immigrant generations, examining how those raised in Britain tend to have different patterns of civic engagement and trust compared with those who moved to Britain as a child, who in turn are distinct from those who moved in adulthood.

Kate Reed

Kate is very experienced in supervising PhD projects where race is the core substantive subject. She has also published on raced aspects of healthcare participation and experience. She was also involved in the developing the pioneering WR DTP ring-fenced scholarships for Black British students in collaboration with the Stuart Hall Foundation.

Mark Taylor

Mark works on social mobility, particularly with reference to the makeup of work in the cultural and creative industries has changed since 1971: how far do contemporary class inequalities in these jobs simply reflect longer-term trends?

Aneta Piekut

A substantial part of Aneta’s work explores responses to ethnic diversity and international migration at the individual-level for example, prejudice and tolerance, wellbeing and at community level and social cohesion. Aneta's comparative cross-national research exploring differences and responses to immigration mostly uses European Social Survey data.

Lauren White

Lauren is particularly interested in everyday mobilities. She has explored this in particular through everyday experiences of access to toilets in public space and how infrastructures of provision are necessary for mobilities. Most recently, she has been developing research for workers on the move. This includes exploring barriers to toilet access for couriers and delivery drivers and mobile workers more broadly.

Participation

Will Mason

Will is experienced in the use of qualitative approaches within community settings. His ongoing studies use a community-based participatory approach to explore residents’ experiences of services in a low income neighbourhood and to explore the experiences of young people and families in areas of deprivation. Will is particularly interested in university-community partnership and the ethics of reciprocity in social research.

Siobhan McAndrew

Siobhan's research partly addresses social behaviours, notably electoral participation, civic engagement, religious practice, and 'taking part' in cultural activities.

Mark Taylor

Who participates in culture; how does this relate to social inequality; what does it mean to participate in culture in the first place? Mark works with both survey data and transactional data (for example, from box offices) to unpack cultural participation.

Lauren White

Lauren has a track record of working alongside community partners, charities and organisations which have typically centred around health and social care. She strives towards participatory forms of research and methods of co-production. This includes a commitment to public engagement and creatively disseminating research with partners which is a central feature of Lauren’s work.

Methods and methodology

Andy Dickerson

Andy is an applied economist and econometrician. Most of his research involves using large scale survey and administrative data, and micro longitudinal/panel data on individuals and households, including matched datasets.

Andrew Bell

Andy works on developing and critiquing quantitative methods, with a focus on multilevel models, age-period-cohort analysis and fixed/random effects models

Elisabeth Garratt

Although a quantitative researcher by training, Beth has recently begun to undertake qualitative research, with a particular focus on lifecourse and visual methods.

Will Mason

Will uses a wide range of methods in his work, including ethnography, qualitative interviewing, focus groups, case studies, co-construction and community based-participatory approaches.

Siobhan McAndrew

Siobhan enjoys scouting for unusual data sources and making use of them in new ways - particularly directory data and secondary data gathered for very different research projects to her own. She also integrates born-digital and survey data to harness the advantages of both network analytic and survey methods. In a previous life as a policy economist, she conducted elite interviews and focus groups, and occasionally returns to qualitative methods to learn about policy areas for research purposes.

Aneta Piekut

Working with European Social Survey data looking at item nonresponse patterns, Aneta's first paper - 2014, wave 7, exploring nonresponse to questions measuring attitudes towards immigration, her second paper (currently a work in progress) is more of a broad research of all ESS waves and exploring nonresponse to various questions.

Kate Reed

Kate is a qualitative researcher with a particular interest in creative and mobile ethnographic approaches.  

Mark Taylor

Mark’s particularly interested in data visualisation in social research: how can we communicate what we’ve found more clearly and effectively?

Abigail Tazzyman

Abigail’s ethos as a qualitative researcher stems from her early training in feminist research methods and emphasises criticality and reflexivity. Abigail uses a wide range of methods including: interviews, focus groups, observations, case studies, Normalisation Process Theory, and document, discourse and thematic analysis.

Calum Webb

Calum Webb’s 3-year British Academy fellowship will explore the use of novel structural equation models to better understand patterns and processes in the child welfare system and their local variation. His previous work has used multilevel modelling, latent growth modelling, latent class analysis and and integrated mixed methods designs. He has acted as a technical advisor to the Department for Education, as a methodological consultant for Kingston University, and currently sits on the Research Advisory Board of Cafcass.

Lauren White

Lauren uses a wide range of qualitative, creative research methods that are ethnographically driven and informed. These include qualitative interviewing, diary methods, go-along, walking, and mobile methods, object elicitations and material methods. Lauren is also committed to participatory research methods and co-production. She is also interested in feminist and relational ethics in practice.

Course structure

Your PhD supervision could be split between an SMI academic and an academic in another social sciences department.

All PhD students within the Faculty of Social Sciences have access to world-class training alongside your doctoral study. The training you take can be tailored to your individual needs to ensure you have the right skills you need to develop your research.

This training programme is designed to exceed current UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) training and development guidelines and gives all our social science PhD students access to ESRC-funded White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership regardless of your source of funding.

The training is flexible and bespoke to your needs which you will discuss with your PhD supervisors.

1+3

Students looking to undertake PhD study within the Faculty of Social Sciences will require a strong understanding of the full breadth of social science research methods.

Many students are required to take the one-year MA Social Research degree with the SMI before progressing on to their PhD studies.

This year of study develops students' knowledge of research design, quantitative and qualitative methods, develops their professional skills, and allows them to take specialist and advanced subject-based courses in the field of their research topics whilst further developing the themes of your research.

More information on our Social Research MA

Your application

Our guidance details how to apply for a research or EdD degree with us.

How to apply for doctoral study

Length of programme

The Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes contains a wide range of information required by both students and their academic departments from the point of registration onto a higher degree by research, to the point of award, including time scales allowed for the completion of a PhD.

However, a benchmark for this information is:

Full-time PhD

  • Three years (normal)
  • Four years (maximum)

Part-time PhD

  • Six years (normal)
  • Eight years (maximum)

Data Analytics and Society Centre for Doctoral Training

The Data Analytics and Society Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) offers exciting opportunities to undertake a four-year funded integrated MSc and PhD in Data Analytics and Society.

The programme includes an integrated MSc in data analytics over the first two years, which provides you with the foundation skills to complete your research project.

Mature student open evening

Are you 21 or over and interested in undergraduate study?

Join us on 4 December (5 to 8pm) to find out about returning to education as a mature student.

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