Soc-B Centre for Doctoral Training in Biosocial Research

The Soc-B Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) offers unique PhD training in biosocial research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to build capacity in this growing area of interdisciplinary scientific endeavour.

The purpose of Soc-B research is to identify social exposures and causal pathways that lead to sub-clinical biological change, the ultimate aim of which is to identify points for intervention with the potential to improve health and redress health inequalities. Soc-B takes a lifecourse perspective to biosocial research to investigate how social environments, biology and behaviours intersect to influence health and functioning. Soc-B combines theoretically derived social drivers of health with state-of-the-art biological information to provide insights into mediating pathways providing points of interventions to influence population health. Thus, the programme seeks to understand social contexts and how these might influence biological processes using a range of advanced quantitative approaches key to the interpretation of biosocial research findings.

As a graduate of the Soc-B programme it is expected that you will be one of a cadre of cutting-edge researchers with the theoretical knowledge, analytic capabilities and communication skills to make major advances in biosocial research in the future.

What current students are saying about their first module in the Soc-B CDT:

"I particularly liked the access to leading academics in multidisciplinary roles discussing their fields in a language we could all understand…The interactivity of it was great."

"I am extremely grateful to be part of this first cohort that allow researchers with my interests to be able to pursue them without being limited by regulations!"

"The discussion that took place and talks from guest speakers have sparked my interest in areas that I had not considered prior."

"I feel privileged to be part of the biosocial CDT. The sessions have been fascinating and really ignited certain areas of interest and gave me lots of research ideas and questions to take back and look at."