The University of Kent is seeking two highly motivated and ambitious PhD candidates to work within the area of Quantitative Social Sciences. The successful candidates will join the exciting new research community of the Eastern Area Research Consortium (E-ARC) which unites Kent with the Universities of East Anglia and Essex as a significant new force in research collaboration and training.
About QSS at Kent
At the University of Kent an increasing number of staff are undertaking research on a wide range of topics, using quantitative research methods. Such research includes projects on individual’s attitudes and behaviour environmental change, and predicting market outcomes. Recently several grants have been awarded for projects that deal with the application of quantitative methods for teaching and research. The University of Kent is one of the few universities that have been awarded the Q-Step grant, which aims to promote quantitative teaching for undergraduate social science students. In collaboration with UEA and Essex, we have been awarded an ESRC grant to establish a new ESRC Business and Local Government Big Data Centre. The University of Kent has also secured additional funding from the ESRC Southeast Doctoral Training Centre for its advanced doctoral training in multilevel modelling.
PhD Fellowships
We are looking to recruit students with a strong research proposal using quantitative methods or mixed methods in the following two areas.
Work life and family life
With the increase of dual earner families, balancing work and family life has become a societal issue that impacts a growing number of people. We are interested in proposals that:
- Examine the broad range of relationships between work and family life. More specifically we welcome proposals that examine how work, working conditions, and institutions that support families, impact work life balance of individuals and their family relations.
- Examine the consequence of lack of work-life balance on individuals (e.g., on one’s well-being and employment), families, companies (performance and HRM issues), or the wider society (fertility and others).
- Examine how the changing balance between work and family life is related (as cause or consequence) to policy and politics.
Proposals that engage in the gender dimensions of the above questions are encouraged as well.
Aging and demographic change
Increase in life expectancy is one of the greatest societal achievements, but an aging society also poses many social, psychological and economic challenges. Reducing ageism, negative age stereotypes and intergenerational tensions are key to overcoming some of these challenges and increasing the participation of older people. We are interested in proposals that:
- Explore the nature of ageism and attitudes to age (both towards the old and young), and those that address the consequences of ageism (age stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination) for older people (i.e. on health, employment) and/or wider society (i.e. policy, community and intergenerational cohesion).
- Focus on understanding the implications of population aging and demographic change for politics (e.g., due to the political attitudes of older people), or policies (both company and state level policies), or family relations.
The two successful candidates will work with both academics at Kent whilst being placed in a privileged position to network with academics and postgraduate researchers from across the three research intensive universities. Provision will be made for the appointment of additional supervisors from Essex or East Anglia as appropriate and for students to take advantage of research expertise and training offered across all partner institutions. Candidates will play a significant role in supporting the development of the E-ARC. The two fully funded PhD studentships offer equivalent funding to a RCUK studentship (i.e. tuition fees (at the home/EU rate), a stipend and research training support grant).
Quantitative Social Sciences at Kent is led by Dr Heejung Chung and Dr Hannah Swift has been appointed as the Research Fellow for this area. Candidates interested in applying for the Kent Eastern ARC Scholarships should make contact with potential supervisors at the University of Kent. Academic enquiries should be sent to Dr. Heejung Chung (H.Chung@kent.ac.uk).
Closing Date for Applications: Friday 30 January 2015. If you are interested in applying for an Eastern ARC PhD Studentship, please apply on-line and indicate that you are seeking Eastern ARC studentship funding.
Applications will be subject to a shortlisting process and interviews are expected to take place in March 2015.