PhD study

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

• 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 can be summarised by the five themes that you can see below. 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, do not hesitate to 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

Professor 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.

Dr 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)

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Professor 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. 

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Dr 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

Professor 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.

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

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

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

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

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Dr 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

Professor 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.

Dr 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.

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

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Professor 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.

Dr 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?

Dr 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.

Dr 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 (see here). 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

Dr 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.

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

Dr 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.

Dr 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

Professor 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.

Dr 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

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

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

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

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Dr 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.

Your application

Entry requirements

Research students normally need a first degree which is equivalent to a UK 2:1 classification or better, and a masters degree which is equivalent to a UK mark of 65% or above. Candidates with other qualifications will be considered on an individual basis.

For students whose first language is not English, we require an IELTS grade of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component, or equivalent. We now also offer an online "bridge" programme to help selected applicants gain the required academic skills to produce a successful proposal; for more information, see the faculty's application pages.

Scholarships

There are a number of ways that you can apply for funding to study a PhD at the SMI. For more information, click here

How to apply

Candidates are invited to contact potential supervisors to discuss your research and the initial stages of your application. If at any stage of your application you have any questions, we would encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.

Once you feel confident of your proposal and your supervisor, you need to apply directly online using the Postgraduate Application form. 

If you are interested in applying and have any questions please contact us.

Apply now

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:

PhD (full-time)

• 3 years (normal)
• 4 years (maximum)

PhD (part-time)

• 6 years (normal)
• 8 years (maximum)