Postgraduate research
The School of Law is home to a range of research centres and groupings spanning criminology and criminal justice, law, bioethics, and science and innovation. We have over 70 full time and part time PhD students. There are currently about 15 PhD candidates in the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCCJ), another 15 under the Centre for Ethics and Social Policy (CSEP) and the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation (iSEI), and around 40 PhD candidates conducting research in various areas of legal scholarship.
Office accommodation for PhD students has recently been renovated and includes dedicated networked PCs in shared rooms of varying sizes. Many of our PhD students are funded by Research Council studentships (e.g. ESRC, AHRC), Law School Scholarships, Graduate Teaching Assistantships, Graduate Research Assistantships, and Alumni Studentships, all of which cover the full payment of tuition fees and usually include an additional stipend living allowance. Our PhD students come from all over the UK and the rest of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Generic research skills training is provided from across the Manchester Doctoral College, and subject-specific research skills training is available through a range of regular and more focussed training sessions within the School. Doctoral students are normally allocated two supervisors from within the School of Law; creating supervisory teams with scholars in other sections of the University is also possible. Students are encouraged to participate in PhD-in-Progress seminars, in fortnightly Seminars for Empirical Research Students, and in the annual Postgraduate Research Conference held in the School of Law. Funding is made available annually on a competitive basis that students can use to fund attendance at conferences or other activities connected to their professional development.
The School boasts a vibrant and diverse postgraduate research culture and provides a stimulating and dynamic environment in which to further your studies.
If you would like to discuss a possible application on to one of our PhD programmes, please get in touch with our PhD Programme Director, Kirsty Keywood. Kirsty is the Programme Director for all postgraduate research programmes in the School, except the PhD in Bioethics & Medical Jurisprudence. The Programme Director for the PhD in Bioethics & Medical Jurisprudence is Rebecca Bennett.
The administrator in charge of applications for PhD study is Mary Platt
The administrator in charge of PhD funding applications is Stephen Wadsworth.
For further information about our research centres, visit:
For a full list of our research areas, visit:
For information about our research philosophy and how our research is valued, see: