PhD Human Geography: The University of Manchester

Course description

The Geography subject area of the School of Environment and Development (SED) is highly research focused. Their full time staff are all research active and have published almost 300 articles, papers, book chapters and books since 1999. They currently supervise almost 40 research students, who are funded by the EPSRC and ESRC, among others.

They offer a broad based and flexible research training for our doctoral students. All research students in Geography can therefore take advantage of an in-house research training programme over the course of their degree. This ensures that students emerge from the doctoral programme with not only a PhD in a specialised area but also with a broader awareness of research skills, theory and current debates in geography.

The University of Manchester has a strong reputation in the areas of economic geography, urban geography and well-being, health and disease geography. Their economic geographers - Gavin Bridge, Noel Castree, Neil Coe, Martin Hess, Kevin Ward and Erik Swyngedouw - all draw upon political economy to understand three related issues:

• urban and regional state restructuring
• geographies of globalisation
• nature and environment

Their urban geographers include Martin Dodge, Christine Haylett, Mark Jayne and Kevin Ward and they work alongside the Centre for Urban Policy Studies. Their research focuses on cultures of consumption, geographies of cyberspace, neo-liberalism in Western Cities, urban revanchism and the urban poor.

Finally, Fiona Smyth and Sara MacKian together cover the areas of disease diffusion and prevention and health systems in Western and non-Western countries.

Specialisations in this subject area include:

• the political economy of urban and regional state spatialities
• global production networks
• the geographical restructuring of labour markets
• the political economy of nature and environment
• health policy and health systems; the geography of disease

Career opportunities

PhD graduates enter a wide variety of careers, including in local and national government institutions, international agencies, private sector consultancy and management, as well as academic and other educational institutions.

Recent graduates have gone to take senior positions in the UK's Food Ethics Council. the Institute of Public Policy Research (based in London) and various arms of local and national government worldwide.

Entry requirements

Academic entry qualification overview: A First or good Second Class Honours degree, followed by an appropriate Postgraduate qualification, for direct entry to PhD. It is expected that you will already possess a Masters degree.

English language: If your first language is not English, you need a minimum of IELTS 7.0 or TOEFL 600 paper-based or 250 computer based.

Unit grade information: The University of Manchester welcomes the provision of unit grade information which, like all other available information, will inform the consideration of applications. Unit grades will not normally form part of offer conditions, except for Mathematics programmes.

Key Skills qualification: The University warmly welcomes applications from students studying the Key Skills qualification. However, as the opportunities to take these modules are not open to all applicants, currently this is not an essential requirement of the University.