Postgraduate research degrees
The Division is made up of four Research Departments: Mental Health of Older People, Mental Health and Neuroscience, Marie Curie Palliative Care Research, and Epidemiology and Applied Clinical Research.
Our students come from a range of academic backgrounds including nursing, medicine, psychology and social sciences.
- How to apply
Expressions of interest
When you have formulated a PhD research idea and would like to discuss options for studying within the Division of Psychiatry, please approach a member of the Division who shares your interests (broad research interests can be found further down this page under 'Supervisors'). At this stage, you would be expected to share your research interests, thesis idea, training needs and the methods you would hope to use with potential supervisors. You may also want to ask supervisors about future grant proposals on which there might be PhD opportunities.
Once you have contacted a staff member and have their agreement to be a supervisor, you should register your interest via below so that we can support your application. In this form you will be asked to provide contact information, list your supervisor(s), and tell us more about your project plan. This form also includes the option of providing diversity monitoring information, which will only be used for internal purposes and will not be passed on to supervisors. This information will be stored following UK GDPR guidance.
A prospective supervisor may then invite you to further online meetings, to visit the department for informal discussion, or to complete the ϲ application form. At this stage it is essential that a suitable subject area can be identified and that you are sufficiently interested, motivated and able to produce a doctoral thesis. The interaction between student and supervisor can often be a crucial ingredient for the success of any research.
MPhil to PhD
Under ϲ regulations, all PhD students at ϲ are initially registered as MPhil students, and must go through the process of an upgrade from MPhil to PhD status.
For full-time research students, this happens between 9 and 18 months after initial registration, and for part-time students, this is between 15 and 30 months after starting. We adhere to the standard ϲ expectations for upgrade in the DoP. This involves submitting an upgrade report, presenting your work and future plans to the department and taking part in an upgrade viva.
- Funding
section for further information on fees.
We have over 70 PhD students in the division. Some are self-funded (often through working part time on studies within the division alongside study), while others have been awarded funding to cover fees and a stipend for living costs. If you have a research idea and would like to discuss PhD options with a member of the Division, do feel free to contact any of us directly, having looked through the webpages describing individuals' research interests.
Available funding opportunitities at ϲ include:
- Soc-B Centre for Doctoral Training in Biosocial Research
- ϲ Wellcome 4-year PhD in Mental Health Science
Other main sources of funding forUK/EU applicantsare studentships from:
Below are also some links to opportunities for funding by specialised charities:
Please check the information for prospective graduate students on thefor a full listing of funding possibilities. Another source of funding information can be found
Overseas studentsare eligible to apply to a number of sources of funding, including The British Council, Commonwealth Scholarships and WHO Scholarships. In the majority of instances you must apply direct to the funding organisation andit is vital to make early enquiries(up to a year in advance).
Please also review eligibility for the funding streams listedby clicking on the links provided as conditions vary. If you have a query after checking all the information signposted below please contact us.
- Supervisors
Please click a supervisors name to view further information regarding their background and contact details.
Supervisors
Supervisor Research interests - Causal inference
- Genetics
- Electronic medical records
- ’s disease
- Neurodevelopment
- Pharmacoepidemiology
- Genetic and environmental determinants of dementia
- ’s
- Mendelian randomisation
- Genetic epidemiology
- Polygenic risk scores
- Children and young people's mental health
- Health services research
- Systematic reviews
- Mixed methods research
- Genetics
- Psychosis
- Dementia
- Clinical Psychology
- Trauma and PTSD
- Vicarious traumatisation
- Wellbeing and resilience
- Evaluating novel treatment interventions
- Case series design research
- Qualitative research
- Communication and conversation in palliative care
- Communication and conversation in terminal care
- Conversation analysis
- Interventions to improve conversation in health and social care
- Neuroimaging
- Psychopharmacology and psychiatric treatment
- Psychosis and Schizophrenia
- Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- PTSD and Complex PTSD
- Trauma
- Schizophrenia
- Biploar Disorder
- Psychosis
- Genetics
- Neurophysiology
- Biomarkers
Professor Anthony David - Insight into illness
- Longitudinal studies of risk for psychosis using the ALSPAC cohort
- Functional neurological disorders
- Depersonalisation disorder
- Causal inference
- Genetics
- Electronic medical records
- ’s disease
- Neurodevelopment
- Pharmacoepidemiology
- Psychiatric epidemiology
- Social determinants of mental health
- Severe mental illness, self-harm, and suicide
- Palliative care
- Medication management and pharmacy practice
- Patient safety
- Professional and informal systems of care
- Health services research
- Psychological interventions
- Older people
- Dementia
- Physical health conditions
- Clinical trials
- Carers
- Health services research
- Epidemiology
- Qualitative research
- Intellectual developmental disabilities
- Challenging behaviour
- Borderline intelligence
- Psychiatric epidemiology
- Pharmacoepidemiology
- Prediction and personalisation
- Ecological momentary assessment
- Causal Inference methods
- Psychosis and schizophrenia
- Mood disorders
- Physical health-mental health interface
- Sociology of ageing
- Cultures of ageing
- Personhood and later life
- Medical Sociology
- Computational psychiatry
- Treatment mechanisms
- Neuromodulators
- Cognition, metacognition and thought choice
- Relapse mechanisms and prevention
- Depression, anxiety and substance use disorders
- Epidemiology and applied research
- Forensic Psychiatry/Forensic mental health
- Rehabilitation psychiatry
- Risk assessment and risk management
- Prison research
- Comorbidity of physical and mental health conditions in people with severe mental illness
- Education evaluation
- Clinically applied anthropology
- Cross-cultural psychiatry
- Psychiatric ethnography
- Cultural formulations in mental health
- Caste & mental health in India
- Mental health of marginalised populations across cultures
- Mental health care for people with severe mental health problems, especially for early psychosis, bipolar or people with a "personality disorder" diagnosis
- Crisis and acute mental health care
- Loneliness/social connection and mental health
- Rehabilitation Psychiatry
- Health Services Research
- Complex psychosis
- Psychiatric epidemiology
- Psychosis and schizophrenia
- Social and economic determinants of mental health
- Immigration and ethnicity in mental health
- Causal Inference methods
- Genetics
- Depression
- Diverse populations
- Dementia care
- End of life care/palliative care
- Carer wellbeing
- Compassion/emotion regulation
- Psychological interventions
- The causes, treatment and prevention of depression and anxiety
- Self-harm and suicidality
- Young peoples mental health
- Epidemiology and aetiology of depression
- Relationship between reward and punishment mechanisms and the treatment and outcome of affective disorders
- Dementia
- Family Carers
- Neuropsychiatric Symptoms
- Quality of Life
- Trials
- Technology
- Health services research
- Social care research
- Process and implementation research
- Dementia prevention
- Psychological risk factors
- Subjective cognitive decline
- Behavioural interventions
- Molecular genetics of schizophrenia
- Molecular genetics of bipolar Disorder
- Molecular genetics of alcohol Dependence
- Molecular genetics of Wernicke Korsakov's syndrome
- Psychosis
- Schizophrenia
- Neuroimaging
- Brain development
- Effect of social risk factors on the brain
- Glutamate
- Psychiatric drug treatment
- Decision making in mental health
- History of psychiatry
- Critical psychiatry
- Qualitative research methods
- Shared decision making for psychiatric medication
- Experiences of medicine taking for mental health problems
- PPI and Lived Experience Researcher support in mental health research
- Dementia – risk factors, prevention, management
- Ethnic inequalities in health pathways and outcomes
- Health related behaviours
- Dementia prevention, treatment and care
- Psychological interventions for older people living with and without dementia
- Depression in late life
- Traumatic stress and ageing
- Domestic abuse in older people
- Family carer well-being
- Missing with dementia
- Epidemiology and randomised trials
- Cardiovascular health in psychosis
- Evaluation of interventions in severe mental illness
- Interface between Mental health and physical health
- Psychosis including schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder
- Psychiatric epidemiology
- Suicide and self-harm: risk and protective factors
- Understanding the suicidal mind
- Interventions to reduce the risk of suicide
- Loneliness and social isolation: associations with mental ill-health and suicidality
- Dementia care and support interventions
- Clinical trials in dementia
- Qualitative research
- Inclusion health
- Delirium
- End of life care
- Dementia research
- Liaison psychiatry for older people
- Pain
- Cognitive behaviour therapy
- Randomised clinical trials
- End of life care
- Eating disorders and body dissatisfaction
- Autism and eating disorders, including ARFID
- Social media and eating disorders
- Inequalities in eating disorder treatment access and outcomes
- Policy evaluation
- Weight stigma and mental health
- Causal inference methods
- Epidemiology
- Dementia
- Social cognition
- Social functioning
- Epidemiology
- Care home residents
- Palliative Care
- Terminal Care
- Prognosis
- Symtom Control
- Cancer-related fatigue
- Palliative sedation
- Intellectual Disability and Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Family adaptation and well-being
- Quality of life and well-being in ID and ASD (adults and children)
- Challenging behaviours
- Wellbeing
- Anthropology
- Sociology of scientific knowledge
- Mixed methods
- Patient-reported outcome measure development
- Dementia research
- Treatment trials
- Lewy Body Dementia
- Neuroimaging
- Subjective cognitive decline
- Palliative care for potentially life-limiting illnesses when people are also living with severe and enduring mental illness
- Interpretivist-constructionist socio-culturally orientated theoretical perspectives
- Critical qualitative approaches to empirical research, secondary analysis, plus review and synthesis methods for complex interventions (e.g. realist, metanarrative and meta-ethnography methods)
- Supervision
Along with many areas of ϲ, the DoP are introducing thesis committees from October 2019. These are basically expanded supervisory teams. All research students therefore must have:
- A Principal Supervisor, whose area of expertise is closely aligned with the student’s chosen research topic and who is responsible for directing their research training.
- A Subsidiary Supervisor, who is there to help assess progress, provide continuity of supervision and additional expertise.
- At least two additional supervisors with relevant academic experience. Only one of the three non-primary supervisors can be from the same team as the Primary Supervisor. These members may be ϲ staff or external to ϲ, but at least one of your subsidiary or additional supervisors should be a member of ϲ academic staff.
- Your Principal and Subsidiary supervisors will discuss the composition of your thesis committee when you start and this will be approved by one of the Graduate Tutors.
Supervisors do not necessarily need to come from the same division and can even be drawn from different institutions.
The ϲ Doctoral Skills Development programme runs training sessions on supervisory relationships, for example “Getting the Most Out of Your Supervisory Relationship”, and confidential one-to-one problem-solving sessions. You can find the full list and sign up on the . Resources on Good Supervision are also available. If you are having any difficulties with your supervisor, you can speak to the divisional graduate tutors (Claudia Cooper or Liz Sampson).
- Training & development
Personal development
The ϲ Doctoral Skills Development programme offers personal and professional development training courses tackling topics such as ‘Building up Emotional Strength as a Researcher’, ‘Mindfulness Meditation’ and ‘Managing the Anxieties of a PhD’. You may find these helpful for your wellbeing as a PhD student. You can find the full list and sign up on the .
Doctoral training school
There is a mandatory ϲ Doctoral School training session that runs in Term 1 called Introduction to Doctoral Skills Development and the Research Student Log. This induction provides an outline of the policy on transferable skills training for doctoral students and the national Researcher Development Framework that informs ϲ’s programme. The session will explain how the Research Student Log and the Skills function work together, and how students may record their academic progress and skills development during their degree.
- Support and wellbeing
Mental health and wellbeing support
If you are struggling with your mental health or personal issues, there is a range of support available specifically for ϲ students:
- ϲ 24/7 Student Support Lineis a free, confidential wellbeing support service available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
- : a team of expert wellbeing, disability and mental health advisers, offering a range of support for students, including confidential meetings, daily drop-in sessions and advice on extenuating circumstances and interrupting studies. You can call 0207 679 0100, email student.wellbeing@ucl.ac.uk, or find more information on the student support and wellbeing page.
- : a free service providing short-term counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy, psychiatric support and psycho-educational groups to help you deal with a range of personal, emotional and psychological concerns.
- PhD students can access some additional sources of support from ϲ Workplace Health, on top of what's offered for all our students, includingSilverCloud, an online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) platform, that offers wellbeing support to ϲ staff and PhD students.
- ϲ Student Funding Advisors: confidential financial support, advice and guidance for ϲ students struggling with money management or complex funding issues. Current students can raise a query on the askϲ system. Prospective students can email: studentfundingadvice@ucl.ac.uk.
Quiet room
In Wing B there is a quiet room, which can be used for breastfeeding, expressing breastmilk, prayer, or simply as a quiet space. The room is on the left hand side of Wing B, behind meeting room 8.