Occupational therapy PhD | Occupational science PhD

As an occupational therapy PhD or occupational science PhD student you will be able to develop your expertise in an area of clinical or professional practice and advance your knowledge, understanding and application of occupational science and research methodologies.

Occupational science is the study of humans as occupational beings, the meaning of occupation and its impact on health and wellbeing. The diversity of occupational science and occupational therapy PhDs is as broad as the profession itself. As a doctoral student at the 国产探花, there are opportunities to engage with a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives.

You may wish to focus on an aspect of clinical practice such as physical/mental health, learning disabilities, older people, paediatrics, diverse practice, or social care. Alternatively, you may wish to explore a leadership/management/educational or professional issue; or develop policy, theory or understanding around an aspect of human occupation. As such, occupational therapy and occupational science research is open to a wide variety of research questions and designs, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed method approaches.

Our expert staff work collaboratively with doctoral students to create a community of learning which fosters the development of occupational therapy and occupational science research and practice. Examples of staff areas of interest and expertise include: practice with older people, children, people with learning disabilities and in diverse settings; occupational science; understanding the life world of individuals needing occupational therapy; the therapeutic use of craft activity; pedagogic approaches; technology supporting participation; resilience; and dark side occupations.

Staff are able to offer support through their expertise in a wide range of quantitative, qualitative and mixed method research methodologies, with particular strengths in qualitative research, including case study, ethnography, phenomenology, IPA and narrative methodologies. The 国产探花 offers interdisciplinary supervision across a range of allied health and health care practice areas. Programmes are focused on applied research in occupational therapy and occupational science with research students playing an important role in exploring, developing and improving professional practice.

Graduates with a PhD in occupational therapy and occupational science from the 国产探花 proceed to employment in various organisations including NIHR, NHS, university lecturer posts and consultancy, as well as further research.

Contact an expert in this field

Successful applicants have invariably had support with their application from one of our academics. We suggest you approach a suitable academic staff member with relevant research interests before progressing with your application.

Details of our doctorate degree in occupational therapy and occupational science

Research supervisors for your PhD research programme

You will benefit from research supervision comprising two or maximum three members of academic staff. To ensure the right mix of expertise alongside specialists in occupational therapy and occupational science, one of the supervisors might come from the wider School of Education, Sport and Health Sciences, from another 国产探花 school (for example arts practice or biology), or from an external partner.

You will identify your primary potential supervisor in occupational therapy from the early stages of application and they will usually then support you throughout your programme of study, helping you find any additional support to carry out your research, guiding your learning of rigorous research methods and preparing you for the next stage of your career.

You should consider the staff listed at the foot of the page and create a short draft research proposal identifying your suitability for supervision from that person's research specialism.

We welcome research related to any aspect of occupational therapy or occupational science including:

Transition from adolescence to adulthood for those living with cerebral palsy
Occupational therapy in diverse settings
The impact that technology has on the therapeutic environment within areas related to occupational therapy
The practice of embroidering in relation to health and well-being
Occupational therapy with people with intellectual disabilities (learning disabilities), in particular those with complex needs/ profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
Supporting and enabling people with intellectual disabilities to engage in occupations and promoting occupational justice, in particular through improving the quality of support provided
Ethical means of involving those who may not have capacity as research participants in order that their needs may be researched and their support improved
Lived experiences of older lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people: issues of human occupation, exclusion, isolation and health and social care
Human occupation and older people
The psychosocial issues of physical illness and trauma
HIV the self and human occupation
Diabetes the self and human occupation
Having a disability and engaging in human occupation in public arenas
Flow and occupational science
Resilience
Effectiveness of pedagogic approaches in occupational therapy education
Students with disabilities/dyslexia: practice placements and learning in higher education.

Research training and support

PhD students are provided with supervisors from both within and outside occupational therapy and occupational science and offered a range of developmental opportunities to help challenge and broaden their academic and professional thinking. You will have the opportunity to network with other doctoral students and staff across the university to share ideas and expertise. You will be supported with conference presentation preparation, with research planning and publication activities as well as grant applications and network-building, for example by joining our Public Health and Health Conditions Research Excellence Group. Whatever the focus of your PhD project, you will be able to draw on research approaches from a variety of related fields.

As a member of the 国产探花 Doctoral College, you will benefit from regular opportunities on a training programme designed to support postgraduate researchers at all stages of the PhD and help them achieve their career goals. Attendance at appropriate workshops within this programme is encouraged, as is contribution to the various seminar series hosted by the school and the annual Postgraduate Research Festival. Academic and technical staff also provide more subject-specific training.

Postgraduate degree resources for occupational therapy students

We pride ourselves on conducting research within the context of professional practice and our students join us from various stages in their careers or at the point of a career change.

As well as academic staff experienced in the profession, you will benefit from access to internationally-linked research resources, including a contemporary range of electronic resources via the university’s Online Library, as well as the physical book and journal collections housed within campus libraries. The library services are connected to national and international collections and students also have the option of inter-library loans.

The School of Education, Sport and Health Sciences

Students have a base on the 国产探花's Falmer Campus where PhD students from a range of health disciplines can meet and exchange ideas. This is where our disciplinary facilities and our supervisory staff can normally be found.

The academic profile of this part of the university includes midwives, nurses, physiotherapists, podiatrists, occupational therapists, sports scientists and osteopaths. We also collaborate closely with staff from other parts of the university, for example, 国产探花 and Sussex Medical School. We have professional networks and collaborate with departments in other universities together with clinicians and managers locally.

You and your fellow postgraduate researchers will have the opportunity to attend and present at research seminar sessions, and to integrate with researchers over a range of relevant specialisms. You may find closely aligned researchers in one of the university's Centres of Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence (COREs) or Research Excellence Groups (REGs), including the Public Health and Health Conditions Research Excellence Group.

As a postgraduate doctoral student in occupational therapy, you are encouraged to meet for informal discussions and supportive activities and on an annual basis for research conference/celebrations. We value all personal input from researchers and those interested in becoming researchers, and those who are interested to find out more about research and share ideas and knowledge.

The school is proud of a long-standing strength in professional practice and education, with accreditation of our taught courses by regulatory and professional bodies including the Royal College of Occupational Therapists and the World Federation of Occupational Therapists and, across the wider school, Chartered Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity, the Department for Education, the Health and Care Professions Council, and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

The School of Education, Sport and Health Sciences has established links with clinicians and other academics at the 国产探花 and also invites doctoral students to attend doctoral discussion areas.

Aerial picture of Falmer campus

Paddock Field 1 2023

Our leafy Falmer Campus brings researchers together from across all aspects of health science and healthcare.

Supervisory interests

We strongly recommend that you apply with the support of one of our academics. By establishing your supervisor from the early stages of application, you will be supported through the application process and can make the best start to your programme of study.

You should consider the staff listed below and create a short draft research proposal identifying your suitability for supervision from that person's research specialism and your place in the wider context of the department's research ambitions. Their contact details are available on their full profile.

Our primary staff supervising in the discipline are listed. For further information on university supervisory staff, including cross-disciplinary options, please visit

Paul values public involvement in research and is interested to support rights-based research in: living with disability; user experiences of health, social care and education services; adolescent development and working with the family; disability, human rights and rehabilitation; understanding physical disability and mental health. He supervises Masters and doctoral students undertaking qualitative research and is particularly keen to support phenomenological research.

Channine is an experienced research supervisor at both Masters and聽 Doctoral level. She has a particular interest in practice education. She is known internationally for her research and publications on role-emerging placements and diverse practice and is interested in further research in these areas.聽

As an occupational therapist, Channine is also interested in understanding the influence of occupations on health聽and well-being.

Channine is a qualitative researcher, with expertise in Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.聽

David鈥檚 PhD supervisory interests include occupational therapy and occupational science, particularly (though not exclusively) in relation to people with intellectual (learning) disabilities.聽 He is also interested in research related to ensuring high quality support and care of people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities and others with complex and high support needs.聽

His primary expertise is in qualitative research with particular interests in action research and case study and ethnographic methodologies.聽 If relevant to his research interests and expertise, he would be very interested in supporting those wishing to undertake a PhD at 国产探花 with development of their research proposal.

David is exploring the potential of a PhD Studentship to take forward the evaluation of the clinical reasoning tool currently being developed (see Research Interests above).

David is currently supervising the following PhD students:

Esther Dark: More than calories? Exploring the meaning of food and eating for individuals with lived experience of anorexia.聽

Elspeth Clark: Belonging and people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Denise Harris: Supervision practices in an English NHS organisation: Complexity and Paradox

He is also supporting Audrey Yong's PhD by publication related to home environment design for people with autism and intellectual disabilities.

Tara is interested in supporting PhD studies which involve children and young people in reviewing or developing the healthcare services they receive and healthcare technologies they use. She has experience carrying out research with young people with limb difference, spinal cord injury and autism. She is particularly interested in participatory and emancipatory research.

I thoroughly enjoy the experience of supervising student research projects and have done so since working in academia in 2010. I am open to a variety of topics, including those that would fall under the umbrella of illuminating the Dark Side of Occupation.聽

I have supervised and co-supervised BSc (OT), Pre-Registration and Advanced Professional Practice MSc (OT, Physiotherapy, and Paramedic), and PhD level research projects, with topics including:

An exploration of the meaning of food-related occupations for individuals with lived experience of anorexia
Exploration of the subjective occupational experience of a European male living with HIV/AIDs
Childhood occupations during bereavement
How do learning disabled adults experience leisure activities?
The lived experience of fatherhood through the Covid-19 pandemic
Smoking as an occupation
Sex as work
Specialist Paramedics perceptions of factors influencing their clinical decision making
Opinion of the MDT regarding the role of rehabilitation for people with a functional neurological disorder
Factors which contribute to older people living in the community choosing to sleep in a chair
Occupations during 鈥楩reshers鈥�
Student鈥檚 timeuse of Facebook
Initial scoping review of literature re: the dark side of occupation
Occupational therapy for community dwelling elderly people
Impact of trauma amongst firefighters
Student鈥檚 exploration of maladaptive occupations, such as substance use
A systematic review of literature exploring the links between occupation, identity, and well-being.
The lived experience of fathers during the 2020/21 Covid-19 pandemic
Revisiting Karen Whalley Hammell鈥檚 exploration of the core assumptions that have underpinned theories of human occupation
The lived experiences of UK occupational therapists whoaddress sex and intimacy with the people with whom they work
The lived experiences of doing, being, becoming, and belonging for second generation adults who disaffiliate from a New Religious Movement

I have been lead supervisor for a completed doctoral (PhD) student; I feel my experience of the doctoral journey and supervisory relationship, coupled with externally examining a professional doctorate (ProfDoc), and also co-editing a text with Professor Gayle Letherby regarding the doctoral journey (The Doctoral Journey as an Emotional, Embodied, Political Experience) has well-prepared me for this.

This range of experience is something I can bring to the supervisor-supervisee/s relationship, which is a critical relationship that depends on realistic expectations being clearly stated, and mutual respect.

Making an application

Once you have prepared a first-rate application you can apply to the 国产探花 through our . When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the 国产探花 staff. We strongly recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Fees and funding

Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2024–25

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

MPhil/PhD
	Full-time	Part-time
UK	£4,786	£2,393
International (including EU)	£15,900	N/A
International students registered in the School of Humanities and Social Science or in the School of Business and Law	£14,500	N/A

PhD by Publication
Full-time	Part-time
N/A	£2,393

Contact 国产探花 Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the 国产探花 we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the 国产探花 Doctoral College page.

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.