Programme overview The School of Social and Community Medicine is a leading international centre for research and teaching of population health sciences. Staff in the School are leaders in their fields and have extensive national and international research collaborations, with several providing health policy advice for government organisations and international bodies. Our staff are multi-disciplinary, including: statisticians, epidemiologists, geneticists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, health economists, public health physicians, medical ethicists, computational biologists, neuroscientists, and various community-based physicians and nurses. We are keen to attract graduates from all these disciplines to carry out postgraduate research. The School has approximately 80 postgraduate research students. In the 2013 PRES (Postgraduate Research Experience) survey 94% of our students were satisfied with their postgraduate experience. Ratings for quality of supervision, resources, research culture, progress assessment, research skills training and professional development all exceed sector averages. A selection of fully funded PhD opportunities are available within the School. We have a Wellcome Trust four-year PhD programme in Molecular, Genetic and Lifecourse Epidemiology. The MRC ConDuCT-II Hub for trials methodology research offers three year PhD opportunities in medical statistics, health economics, outcomes research, qualitative methods, and trial management. The MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit provides four year PhD opportunities on a range of cross-disciplinary projects integrating molecular and other data to investigate the causal effects of potentially modifiable exposures on health-related outcomes. Other funded studentships are also available for projects in any research area within the School. Students who have already secured funding are encouraged to discuss research topics with potential supervisors before applying.

Careers after an PhD in Social and Community Medicine The majority of our final year PGR students express a wish to continue in the field of research. Since 2000, 10 PhD students have progressed to Professor and 10 to Lecturer/Senior Lecturer. Among recent PhD graduates 88% now work in the academic sector, with the remainder working in the health and private sectors. In addition to excellent research training, we train our students in a range of transferable skills to ensure they have the best possible opportunities whatever their chosen career.