We are pleased to offer one fully funded Studentship associated with the Tizard Centre. The scholarship available will cover tuition fees at the postgraduate home rate (£4,786 for 2024/25) and an annual stipend based on the current ESRC studentship maintenance grant (£19,237 per annum (2024/25 rate) in line with the UKRI rate).
The Tizard Studentship is offered as a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. So, in return for the award, you will be expected to do a limited amount of teaching within the department(s) on a regular basis.
The deadline for this scholarship has now passed. Details of 2025/26 academic year will be made available here when ready.
Candidates will have obtained a First or good 2.1 undergraduate degree in a relevant subject and normally an MA/MSc at Merit or Distinction.
Potential PhD topics and supervisors 2024-2025
We welcome applications concerning all aspects of the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, but the academic staff named below are particularly interested in supervising research in the following specialist areas:
Dr Magali Barnoux on people with IDD in the criminal justice system. Dr Barnoux’s research focuses on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who have come into contact with the Criminal Justice System as victims, witnesses, and/or perpetrators of crime. She is particularly interested in the aetiology and characteristics of criminal behaviour for this group of individuals and has specific expertise in the area of deliberate firesetting/arson.
Prof Glynis Murphy may be available to co-supervise with Dr Magali Barnoux on topics relating to people with IDD in the criminal justice system, in terms of offending behaviour, victims, and/or witnesses.
Dr Nick Gore has a number of special interests in the field of Intellectual Disability and Autism that include: Early years support for children and young people; partnership working and co-production with families and staff groups; Emotional wellbeing and psychological support for Autistic people and people with Intellectual Disabilities
Professor Michelle McCarthy on the broad areas of relationships and sexuality; abuse; sexual and reproductive health, especially for women with learning disabilities, reproductive rights for women with learning disabilities (abortion, sterilization), media representations of people with learning disabilities, parents with learning disabilities.
Dr Paraskevi Triantafyllopoulou on health-related issues and psychological interventions for both children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (e.g., epilepsy, sleep, cancer, eating disorders, obesity, A&E, vaccination etc.); educational settings/ approaches for autistic individuals; cyberbullying; internet use and online safety for autistic individuals and people with intellectual disabilities; older adults and dementia; autism diagnosis.
Dr Thanos Vostanis on Precision Teaching across different settings (e.g., schools, prisons, and more), instructional design strategies to optimise learning outcomes, and applied behaviour analytic approaches to empower individuals with intellectual and other developmental disabilities in special education or mainstream settings.
To be considered for either PhD Studentship you must do both of the following by the scholarship deadline:
1. Apply for a place to study one of the following programmes and provide all supporting documents (including references and a research proposal) by the scholarship deadline:
2. Submit a covering letter to M.McCarthy@kent.ac.uk by the Scholarship deadline. Please state clearly in the covering letter which Studentship you are applying for.
The aim of the studentships is to enable the successful candidate to have research impact in the fields of adult social care and intellectual and developmental disabilities. This could be kickstarting a new research career or accelerating a research career for an established practitioner. Therefore, as part of the application process, we ask that you upload a covering letter indicating how being awarded the Tizard PhD studentship fits into your medium/long term career aspirations. If you are shortlisted, you will be asked to speak about this at interview stage. Please send it to M.McCarthy@kent.ac.uk
Enquiries regarding the application process should be made to scholarships@kent.ac.uk
For informal discussions about potential research projects, please contact either Michelle McCarthy M.McCarthy@kent.ac.uk or Magali Barnoux M.Barnoux@kent.ac.uk
Interviews will be held on 20th March 2024.