Entry Year
Academic Year 2025/26
Entry Requirements
2.1
Overview
You'll be a social scientist committed to multidisciplinary research that builds knowledge and capacities in the communities around us, and that has a positive impact on wellbeing. You’ll work in any area of social policy research or practice, including young people and families, education, conflict and social change, social inequality, disability, ageing, health, criminal justice.
Staff in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work publish world-class research which has local and global impact. Our funders and partners include research councils, government departments, the EU, the Council of Europe and large foundations. Our research informs the development of policies in many areas, including education, criminal justice, teaching and learning, the well-being of children, social cohesion and justice, mental health and trauma informed practice.
Students are encouraged to join one of eight research centres in the School:
The Center for Children’s Rights (CRC) is internationally renowned for its research on children’s rights aimed at improving their lives. The CRC focuses on substantive children’s rights issues, children’s participation in decision making and children’s rights-based research methods. The CRC has a reputation for its consultations with children and is known for its work with various UN organisations such as UNICEF.
The Center for Shared Education (CSE) is committed to promoting sharing in education as a mechanism for delivering economic, social and educational benefits to children, schools and society, particularly in post conflict societies. The CSE has three core aims: to increase understanding of school-based sharing; to develop and share the model of shared education; to foster expertise and support practitioners.
The Centre of Language Education Research (CLER) conducts research in language and education to make difference across local, national and international contexts. The expertise of spans language assessment, literacy studies and multimodality, academic discourse, language materials development, and heritage and minoritized language communities, among other topics.
The Centre for Applied Behaviour Analysis (CABA) focuses on the discovery of natural laws of behaviour, the study of how behaviour is shaped by environmental contingencies and how changes affect behaviour. ABA is based on a philosophy of inclusion, evidence-based effective education, and person-centred research and practice, and covers three distinct fields: radical behaviourism; experimental analysis of behaviour and applied behaviour analysis.
The Centre for Justice Studies (CJS) provides a focus for criminological research. The scope of CJS research includes the causes and correlates of crime and other forms of social harms, as well as the responses of the criminal justice system. The CJS aims to encourage and support world-leading research on crime and justice related topics; to facilitate linkages between researchers and justice agencies, reform and abolition groups; and develop international excellence in criminological research; to create a vibrant culture of criminological ideas.
The Centre for Technological Innovations in Mental Health and Education (TIME) develops technology based, inter-disciplinary research in the areas of mental health and professional education and training. Key strategic drivers relate to the new Northern Ireland. Mental Health Strategy. The Centre has a particular focus on developing partnerships with industry, service providers and policy makers.
The Centre for Inclusion, Transformation and Equality (CITE) focuses on inclusion, transformation and equality, addressing core themes of disability; gender & LGBTQ+; equality in education; and ethnicity, race and decoloniality. The four key drivers of CITE are Inter-disciplinarity and intersectionality; building a collaborative and inclusive research culture; impactful research; and participation and co-production.
The Centre for Child, Youth and Family Welfare (CCYFW) provides insights into the lives of children, young people, and families and to achieve better welfare outcomes and improve wellbeing. The centre undertakes high quality research impacting children, young people, and families across regional, national, and international contexts. Staff work collaboratively with policy makers, agencies, practitioners, children and young people, families to review existing evidence, knowledge, and interventions, identify gaps, and develop new theoretical insights, interventions, tools, and models to enhance service delivery.
Subject Summary
Social Policy Highlights
Internationally Renowned Experts
- In the World Rankings, Queen’s is:
Ranked 202 in the world (QS World University Rankings 2024)
Ranked 28th in the UK (QS World University Rankings 2024).
Queen’s ranked 18 in the world for international outlook (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023).
Over 99% of Queen’s research environment was assessed as world-leading or internationally excellent.
Ranked 85 in the world in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023:
Ranked 23 out of 57 UK universities
SDG10 Reduced Inequalities: 39 out of 901 institutions
The School is home to leading international academic experts in specialist fields with a number of academics holding positions on government advisory councils, Chair positions on internationally recognised committees and memberships of research centres across the University, and visiting professorships in research excellent universities across the world
Queen’s is ranked 28 in the UK in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023 and is 11th in the UK for Social Policy.
Queen’s is ranked 12th in the UK for Social Work and Social Policy (REF 2021/ Times Higher Education Subject Rankings).
QS World Rankings places Social Policy and Administration: 55th for Academic Reputation, 76th for Citations per Paper.
Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023 places Queen’s 9th in the UK for research while the Complete University Guide 2024 places Social Policy as 8th.
Key Facts
Research students are encouraged to play a full and active role in relation to the wide range of research activities undertaken within the School and there are many resources available including:
- access to the PG Researcher Development Programme; office accommodation with access to computing facilities and support to attend conferences for full-time students; and, a range of lectures and workshops on key aspects of writing a doctoral thesis.
No Opportunities Currently Available