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Psychology (PhD)

2024-25 (also available for 2023-24, 2025-26)

This course is eligible for Doctoral loan funding. Find out more.

Start date

1 October 2024

13 January 2025

14 April 2025

Duration

The maximum duration for a PhD is 3 years (36 months) full-time or 6 years (72 months) part-time with an optional submission pending (writing-up) period of 12 months.

Sometimes it may be possible to mix periods of both full-time and part-time study.

If studying on a part-time basis, you must establish close links with the University and spend normally not less than an average of 10 working days per year in the university, excluding participation in activities associated with enrolment, re-registration and progression monitoring. You are also expected to dedicate 17.5 hours per week to the research.

Application deadlines

For October 2024

07 June 2024 for International and Scholarship students

28 June 2024 for Home students

For January 2025

18 October 2024 for International and Scholarship students

15 November 2024 for Home students

For April 2025

24 January 2025 for International and Scholarship students

21 February 2025 for Home students

About the research degree

A PhD is the highest academic award for which a student can be registered. This programme allows you to explore and pursue a research project built around a substantial piece of work, which has to show evidence of original contribution to knowledge.

Completing a PhD can give you a great sense of personal achievement and help you develop a high level of transferable skills which will be useful in your subsequent career, as well as contributing to the development of knowledge in your chosen field.

Our research degrees are available as full-time, part-time and some are offered distance learning.

You are expected to work to an approved programme of work including appropriate programmes of postgraduate study (which may be drawn from parts of existing postgraduate courses, final year degree programmes, conferences, seminars, masterclasses, guided reading or a combination of study methods).

This programme of research culminates in the production of a large-scale piece of written work in the form of a research thesis that should not normally exceed 80,000 words.

You will be appointed a main supervisor who will normally be part of a supervisory team, comprising of up to three members to advise and support you on your project.

Entry requirements

The normal level of attainment required for consideration for entry is:

  • a Master's degree from a UK University or equivalent, normally with a classification of merit or distinction, in a discipline appropriate to the proposed programme to be followed, or
  • an upper second class honours degree (2:1) from a UK university in a discipline appropriate to that of the proposed programme to be followed, or
  • appropriate research or professional experience at postgraduate level, which has resulted in published work, written reports or other appropriate evidence of accomplishment.

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.5 overall with no element lower than 6.0, or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our Where are you from information pages.

Why choose Huddersfield?


There are many reasons to choose the University of Huddersfield and here are just five of them:

  1. We were named University of the Year by Times Higher Education in 2013.
  2. Huddersfield is the only University where 100% of permanent teaching staff are Fellows of the Higher Education Authority.
  3. Our courses have been accredited by 41 professional bodies.
  4. 94.6% of our postgraduate students go on to work and/or further study within six months of graduating.
  5. We have world-leading applied research groups in Biomedical Sciences, Engineering and Physical Sciences, Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities.

What can I research?

There are several research topics available for this degree. See below examples of research areas including an outline of the topics, the supervisor, funding information and eligibility criteria:

Outline

Academic research, particularly in disciplines such as psychology, the arts and human geography, has focused on the interface between human beings and their environments. For this project topic, researchers may wish to consider a range of identity based, psychogeographical, arts-based and environmental research to explore issues and topics such as gender, gentrification, geo-political conflicts, homelessness and ‘turning points’ and various other social issues and challenges.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

This project will seek to better understand the deficits underlying atypical behaviour (e.g. addiction, Autism, ADHD) using cognitive models.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has identified that although the number of people accessing assisted conception is increasing overall in the UK, rates remain low in BAME communities. Further under-represented are gamete donors from BAME communities. Projects in this area would likely use qualitative methods and may examine experiences and perceptions amongst various stakeholders, including individuals considering or with personal experience of assisted conception (individuals or couples), health professionals and community organisations.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Examine variables underpinning cancer screening behaviour and barriers to attending cancer screening, with a particular focus on cervical screening, including HPV-related issues.

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Causes and consequences of individual differences in executive function and attention

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Cognitive and neural correlates of psychological disorders

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Proposed research looking at any aspect of UK and international counter-terrorism practice and police will be welcome.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Proposals would seek to explore crime analysis techniques and/or spatial /temporal concentrations of crime in very small units of analysis, including individual addresses or particular types of premises (eg hospitals, airports). Research findings would add to our knowledge of crime generators, attractors and risky facilities or the work of crime analysts. Research in this field may also explore the role, impact and experiences of crime analysts. In both cases, quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods approaches are welcome.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Decision making and substance abuse

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

The current approach to designing out terrorist threat has very much focused upon using situational target hardening measures to block terrorist threat, be that bollards in front of major national infrastructure sites, or defensive architecture that reduces the aesthetic appeal of places and can enhance perceptions of threat. Working closely with Police Counter Terrorist Security Advisors (CTSAs), Urban Designers, Planners and Architects this PhD will explore the existing methods of designing cities to reduce terrorist threat, but will focus upon ways in which positive psychology (the work of Prof. Roach) can be used to design in the pro-social as opposed to simply designing out the ‘outsider’ threat.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Developing Concepts of Gender

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Study of atypical and/or homicidal sexual preferences including erotophonophilia, autassassinophilia, anthropophagic homicide, and chronophilias. In particular, proposals involving examining female sexual predators, as a current emerging research topic, would be welcome.

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Projects in this area would involve experimental studies of human memory, spatial cognition and mental imagery and ideally would incorporate cognitive modelling as an approach to understanding and explanation.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Exploration of the effectiveness of publicity appeals of missing children

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/ Scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

This project will allow prospective candidates to examine how estimator and system (namely, the interview process) variables can elicit false memory amongst eyewitnesses. Successful candidates will have a discussion with the supervisors to determine what factors will be investigated. However, there is a strong preference towards focusing on interrogative suggestibility and misinformation acceptance.

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/ Scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

: Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Face recognition

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/ Scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

To examine the ways in which female aggression is viewed, dealt with and punished. In particular, the aim is to examine girls and women who commit violent and aggressive acts including assault, homicide and multiple/serial homicide. Proposals around this emerging field would be welcomed.

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

To examine the ways in which female aggression and homicide is viewed, dealt with and punished. In particular, the aim is to examine girls and women who commit assault, homicide and multiple/serial homicide. Therefore, proposals examining female predators exhibiting, or female victims of predators exhibiting, homicidal sexual preferences including erotophonophilia, autassassinophilia, anthropophagic homicide, and chronophilias, as a current emerging research topic, would be welcome.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Research in the field of green criminology, particularly that focusing on nonhuman animal harm, wildlife crime and forest crime. Projects may take a criminological, enforcement or socio-legal perspective and multi-disciplinary studies involving other Schools within the university are also welcomed. Research may be qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Policing has been evidenced to be a highly stressful occupation with various opportunities for trauma to occur. Recent estimates demonstrate a disparity between psychological sick leave and self-reported symptomology using psychological testing. At face values this suggests that a substantial proportion of officers who experience psychological symptomology do not take sick leave despite experiencing serve symptomology. One particular hypothesis is that police colleagues might be unable to recognise mental health symptomology. The proposed research seeks to measure mental health literacy in police employees to determine the levels of mental health literacy which could be influential in responding to wellbeing alongside dealing with members of the public exhibiting mental health problems.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Mindwandering, cognitive control, secondary analysis of neuroimaging datasets

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/ Scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

This proposal explores how to develop an often neglected but important aspect of person-centred care. Members of the Spirituality Special Interest Group at the University (now reconstituted as the Spirituality and Compassion Special interest Group, SCSIG and led by myself) have supported a number of PhD studies to date as well as conducted a number of research studies. The concept of Spiritually Competent Practice (SCP; Wattis, Curran and Rogers, 2017) was developed from one of these pieces of work (Jones, 2017). It understands spirituality as part of the human search for meaning and distinguishes it from religion, seeing spiritual care as an important part of holistic person-centred care. My own PhD explored how concepts of Availability and Vulnerability, based on the Celtic Christian tradition, could be ‘secularised’ in Advanced Nursing Practice in Primary Care (Rogers 2016). Earlier work in the group had looked at health care educators’ attitudes to and understanding of spirituality, using brief rating scales developed for the purpose (Prentis et al., 2014). Working in partnership with the local NHS Mental Health Trust we have explored and extended these studies into Mental Health staff (Rogers et al 2019/2020), looking at attitudes to spirituality in mental health care and exploring the utility of SCP and A&V in this context. A study looking at mental health patients’ views has been interrupted by the pandemic but is in progress. The next phase of our research is to extend similar work into the fields of primary care and secondary care. This proposal is for a study exploring attitudes of primary care clinicians (including General Practitioners and Advanced Practitioners) to spirituality and the utility of SCP and A&V in developing understanding in primary care. It would use a mixed methods approach and details of the project would be developed to incorporate interests of a prospective PhD candidate as well as the SCSIG group’s interest in the wider applicability of SCP and A&V as educational and clinical tools in this area.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Modern story telling is cleansed of gore and horror that appear in the original tales of caution and hope; these deal with psychological and cultural issues such as xenophobia, closeness to death, and fear of violent crime. Proposals examining the ways in which folk tales are being expressed in the 21st century, and what psychological issues inherent in that, would be welcome.

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Modern storytelling is cleansed of the gore and horror that appear in the original tales of caution and hope. These deal with psychological and cultural issues that were important narratives distributing messages in a world before widespread literacy, and can be interpreted as dealing with such issues as xenophobia, closeness to death, and fear of violent crime. What purpose then, do modern retellings of these tales contain? Proposals examining the ways in which folk tales are being expressed in the 21st century, and what psychological issues are inherent in that, would be welcome.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Paedophile hunter groups are vastly growing in the United Kingdom and are contributing evidence in up to 46% of trials for those charged with meeting a child after sexual grooming (BBC, 2017). However, the relationship the hunters share with the police is one of contempt with hunters being prosecuted for their actions (Milne, 2018). To date, no research has explored this developing problem and a pertinent place to start is through capturing the public perceptions’ pf paedophile hunter activities. The proposed research would utilise a cross sectional online survey to gauge whether the public support the activities of hunter groups.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Reducing and/or predicting stigma against mental health difficulties

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Projects in this area would involve examining how individuals' self-perceptions and self-esteem relate to their perceptions and behaviour within intimate relationships. Cross-sectional, experimental and longitudinal designs could all be employed to investigate this.

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Sexuality and Gender identity

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/ Scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Spatial Behaviour of Missing Persons

Funding

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/ Scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Deadline

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Spatial cognition, diagrammatic reasoning and mental imagery

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Outline

Projects in this area would investigate an aspect of spatial cognition or mental imagery through empirical experiments and/or cognitive modelling methods.

Funding

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

Deadline

Supervisors

How to apply

Applications are welcome for a diverse range of specialist topics and areas of expertise. We would, especially welcome applications for topics in which the proposed research is in line with the research priorities of the School of Human and Health Sciences.

There are different ways to find the right research topic for you:

  1. Find a supervisor and design your own research project – explore the Huddersfield Research Portal to find research and researcher expertise to find the area you’re interested in.

  2. Browse our listed funded opportunities.

  3. To find out more about the research we conduct, take a look at our Research, Innovation and Skills webpages, where you will find information on each research area.

Student support

At the University of Huddersfield, you'll find support networks and services to help you get ahead in your studies and social life. Whether you study at undergraduate or postgraduate level, you'll soon discover that you're never far away from our dedicated staff and resources to help you to navigate through your personal student journey. Find out more about all our support services.

Researcher Environment

Our postgraduate researchers contribute to our thriving research [culture] community at Huddersfield, in return, we provide an experience that enhances your potential and inspires you to think big and become a globally competitive researcher.

Join our community of like-minded people who are passionate about research and gain access to world-leading facilities, advanced research skills training, and expert career advice.

Reduced inequalities

  • We recently ranked 6 out of 796 global institutions for reduced inequalities in the Times Higher Impact ratings – this recognises our research on social inequalities, policies on discrimination and commitment to recruitment staff and students from underrepresented groups.**

World-leading

  • We are in the top 50 UK universities for research power, and nearly two-thirds of our research environment is classified as world-leading and internationally excellent.***

As a researcher, you’ll gain access to our Researcher Skills Development Programme through The Graduate School, to help broaden your knowledge and access tools and skills to improve your employability. The programme is mapped against Vitae’s Researcher Development Framework (RDF), you’ll benefit from Vitae’s career support as well as our own programme. We also have a team dedicated to improving the academic English needed for research by our international PGRs.

Our training is delivered in a variety of ways to take advantage of online platforms as well as face-to-face workshops and courses. You can access a range of bespoke training opportunities and in-person events that are tailored to each stage of your journey;

  • Sessions on PhD thesis writing, publications and journals, post-doctoral opportunities, poster and conference presentations, networking, and international travel opportunities.

  • Opportunity to work and study abroad via the Turing Scheme through The Graduate School.

  • Externally accredited training programme with Advance HE (HEA) and CMI.

  • Online research training support accessed through a dedicated researcher module in Brightspace, the University’s Virtual Learning Environment.

  • We also hold a series of PGR focussed events such as 3 Minute Thesis, PGR led research conference and informal events throughout the year.

**THE Impact Rankings 2022

*** REF2021

Important information

We will always try to deliver your course as described on this web page. However, sometimes we may have to make changes as set out below.

When you are offered a place on a research degree, your offer will include confirmation of your supervisory team, and the topic you will be researching.

Whilst the University will use reasonable efforts to ensure your supervisory team remains the same, sometimes it may be necessary to make changes to your team for reasons outside the University’s control, for example if your supervisor leaves the University, or suffers from long term illness. Where this is the case, we will discuss these difficulties with you and seek to either put in place a new supervisory team, or help you to transfer to another research facility, in accordance with our Student Protection Plan.

Changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, for example the University being unable to access its buildings due to fire, flood or pandemic, or the University no longer being able to provide specialist equipment. Where this is the case, we will discuss these issues with you and agree any necessary changes.

Your research project is likely to evolve as you work on it and these minor changes are a natural and expected part of your study. However, we may need to make more significant changes to your topic of research during the course of your studies, either because your area of interest has changed, or because for reasons outside the University’s control we can no longer support your research. If this is the case, we will discuss any changes in topic with you and agree these in writing. If you are an international student, changing topics may affect your visa or ATAS clearance and if this is the case we will discuss this with you before any changes are agreed.

When you enrol as a student of the University, your study and time with us will be governed by the University’s Terms and Conditions and a framework of regulations, policies and procedures, which form the basis of your agreement with us. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these as you will be asked to agree to abide by them when you join us as a student. You will find a guide to the key terms here, along with the Student Protection Plan, where you will also find links to the full text of each of the regulations, policies and procedures referred to.

The Office for Students (OfS) is the principal regulator for the University.