PhD/MPhil Psychology and Social Neuroscience

Overview

This multi-site PhD provides the opportunity to deepen your expertise in psychology, whilst exploring the emerging field of social neuroscience.

You’ll investigate a range of topics in cognitive, social and affective neuroscience. You will be working alongside leading researchers from City, University London and Sapienza Universita di Roma.

You’ll benefit from access to research expertise and facilities in both institutions, which have been paired due to the complementary nature of their resources.

Working with healthy subjects - and subclinical, clinical and neuropsychological patients - you’ll study topics such as: embodied cognition and the neural correlates of cognitive, social and affective functions like empathy, intention, action and emotion understanding.

On completing the PhD, you will receive a degree from both, laying the foundation for a collaborative international academic career.

Structure

The Joint PhD in programme in Psychology and Social Neuroscience is designed to develop your skills as an independent scholar. The PhD programme is structured as follows:

Year 1

In year one students are assigned a tutor, who will supervise their work, supporting the student’s growth throughout. A research topic will be chosen in accordance with the training program.

Research topic and technique are chosen by considering student's interests, resources and lab's priorities at City and Sapienza.

Year 2

In year two students will finalise their literature review, develop an outline of the overall shape of their thesis and carry out the bulk of their empirical and analytic work.

Year 3

In year three students will conclude their empirical work and focus on writing up their thesis. They will also seek to disseminate their work in the form of peer-reviewed publications and/or conference presentations and identify opportunities for the next stage of their career.