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Research Degrees 

The Department of Psychology offers 3 to 3.5 year PhD funding schemes and 1 year Master’s research degrees (full time or part time). These research degrees offer the unique opportunity to tackle research questions at the forefront of psychological science.

Students will be supervised by world-leading experts in their field of study and will be part of a thriving community of researchers within the department. Students are active members of their research groups and benefit from a large range of opportunities to present and discuss work with their colleagues in seminars and research workshops.

Research degrees are examined by writing a thesis and, in the case of a PhD, students undertake a viva (oral) examination. In addition to research work, students have the opportunity to undertake some teaching in order to gain valuable teaching experience. The university also offers a wide range of training and personal development courses. Students who are interested in undertaking post-graduate research are encouraged to approach members of staff within their field of interest to discuss and to develop potential research projects suitable for PhD or Master’s by research degrees.

Here is a sample of some project ideas suggested by individual staff. 

These are very much intended only as starting points - prospective students are also welcome to contact staff to discuss their own ideas for PhD or MRes projects - see our list of Staff and Research Groups

Cognitive Neuroscience 

Staff Project
Dr Ulrik Beierholm

Testing Bayesian inference models of perception

Prof Marco Nardini

Learning new senses

Dr Sara Spotorno

Future proofing: Predictive processing in real-world scene viewing, understanding and memory

Dr Lore Thaler

Human Echolocation - A window into human brain plasticity and sensory function

Dr Kathleen Vancleef

Visual perception difficulties after brain injury

Developmental Science 

Staff Project
Dr Haemy Lee Masson Neurocomputational analysis of social touch observation in real-world settings
Prof Marko Nardini

Learning to see the 3D world

Dr Bruce Rawlings

Are children’s creativity and innovation influenced by where they grow up?

Quantitative Social Psychology 

Staff Project
Dr Chuma Owuamalam

When do Female Role Models Help Women’s STEM Outcome?

Dr Vladimir Ponizovskiy Values and Behaviour Change
Dr Milica Vasiljevic The effectiveness and public acceptability of different behaviour change interventions
Prof Mario Weick Top and Bottom, Rich and Poor: Understanding Social Hierarchies