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Research Degrees at the College of Human Sciences

The Postgraduate Research environment within the College of Human Sciences brings together a large community of doctoral researchers from around the world and from across the five schools of Health Sciences, Medical Sciences, Psychology, Sport Health and Exercise Science, and Education and Human Development. Our postgraduate research offer forms part of Bangor University’s Doctoral School which provides governance, training programmes, and university-wide events.

We have over 200 PhD and professional doctoral researchers working under the direction of over 140 academic supervisors with a wide-base of expertise. The current international postgraduate student community is extremely diverse, from 18 countries from across five continents.

Our postgraduate research students have full access to cutting-edge research facilities within each of the five schools and associated research units, including hands on access to:

  • the new Phillips 3T MRI scanner
  • a 3D motion analysis lab
  • two exercise physiology testing and rehabilitation research laboratories
  • open access electrophysiology and eye-tracking laboratories
  • the Bangor Institute for Health & Medical Research (BIHMR) including collaborations with the National Health Service (NHS)

Bangor University is part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Wales Doctoral Training Partnership, a consortium of leading universities, established to train top-level social scientists across Wales. Reflecting the University’s significant expertise in these areas, the College of Human Sciences hosts three of the 20 accredited ESRC Wales Doctoral Training Partnership PhD pathways (Bilingualism, Psychology, and Sport and Exercise Science). The College of Human Sciences Research Task Group includes postgraduate research student representatives as well as the staff directors from each of the five schools to develop strategic goals and ensure an excellent experience at all levels.

Our primary postgraduate research strategic goals are to provide the highest level of doctoral training, to produce independent researchers with the skills to conduct world-leading research with impact at the national and international levels, provide and monitor staff-training in PhD supervision, stimulate cross-disciplinary research, provide pastoral care, and promote excellence in a strong research community for PGRs.

Annual postgraduate research events provide a stimulating and vibrant research culture from which our PhD students experience cutting-edge research by interacting with other research students and staff researchers within and outside their own disciplines. Events include an annual PhD student-led PhD conference with awards for the best PhD research in each school with a special award for multi-disciplinary work. PhD researchers gain experience organising the conference as well as presenting their work to academic staff and students from across the college. 

Workshops organised by the College as well as the Doctoral School include:

  • information on library resources
  • progression in the degree
  • advanced statistical programming
  • data protection
  • intellectual property issues
  • project management
  • sustainability

We also have social events that allow PhD researchers to get together to discuss their work or university life in general in a less formal setting. Such events include a post-conference “general knowledge fun quiz” with prizes for cross-school teams, induction events, and PhTea a weekly lunch time event for all PhD researchers.  Videos demonstrating PhD research at the College and across the university are available on the Doctoral School website.

Our postgraduate researchers make a significant contribution to the internationally excellent and world-leading research profile of Bangor University.  For example, the School of Sport, Health and Exercise science reports that over 75% of the outputs for current Research Excellence Framework (REF) submission are co-authored by postgraduate researchers. Over the past five years, the College of Human Sciences has awarded over 200 PhDs. The four-year completion rates for PhDs each of the schools in the college are between 80 to 100%, making the performance indicators in the college commensurate with the levels reported by the Russell Group Universities in the United Kingdom.

You can see the research degrees currently available in our schools following the links below: