PhD students in Nursing and in Midwifery take an active role in a range of intellectual and social activities within the university. All postgraduate students are integrated into Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs) or Research and Enterprise Groups (REGs). These provide you with a community of like-minded scholars and practitioners and give opportunities to present ‘work in progress’ and network with other researchers.
We provide PhD students with opportunities to work across and gain context from the spectrum of Health Sciences. We believe that this interdisciplinary focus provides our students with an appreciation of real-world problems, and ensures that they are highly employable.
PhD students are provided with a forum for discussion of research activities, for sharing expertise in methods and research approaches and to offer support to all those undertaking or wishing to undertake research in the broad areas of nursing and midwifery. We support all members associated with the area in their research activities, help colleagues with conference presentation preparation, with research planning and publication activities as well as grant applications.
We have links with clinicians and other academics at the 91系列 and also invite doctoral students to attend the discussion areas. The profile of the area includes midwives, nurses, physiotherapists, podiatrists, occupational therapists and sports scientists.
We also collaborate with staff from other parts of the university, for example, Brighton and Sussex Medical School and with departments in other universities together with clinicians and managers locally.
The Brighton Doctoral College offer a training programme for postgraduate researchers, covering research methods and transferable (including employability) skills. Attendance at appropriate modules within this programme is encouraged, as is contribution to the Schools’ various seminar series. Academic and technical staff also provide more subject-specific training.
Expert supervision for a Nursing PhD is offered, for example, in the nature and meaning of care across a number of contexts spanning acute, primary and community as well as secondary care and across a diverse range of health and long term or illness conditions. This includes contributions to new interventions, digital and technological applications, lifeworld-led care perspectives and new understandings of peoples’ experiences.
We have particular strengths in phenomenology and lifeworld research, action research, ethnography and grounded theory and application of new theory relevant to care and well-being. Our research spans the range of age groups; we are undertaking distinctive research in children, critical care, e-technologies and health, inequalities, as well as growing older and living well in older age, gender and old age, and exploring well-being potential within a wide range of illness and long-term conditions. We are also interested in learning in practice, practice development and caring workforce issues.
Our expert supervision for a Midwifery PhD will allow projects to develop on any aspects of midwifery and maternity care, including: public health in maternity, women’s experiences of care, exercise in pregnancy, the midwifery workforce and historical approaches to a range of questions in midwifery.