Department Name:
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Supervisors names and email addresses:
1) Professor Peter Weatherburn (peter.weatherburn@lshtm.ac.uk)
Funding Status:
Directly Funded Project (UK and EU Students Only)
Stipend: £17,803

Application Deadline: 5 January 2020

Interview date: 28 January 2020

Duration:
3 years, full time

Project Description:

Concerns about youth violence, and most specifically knife crime have increased substantially over the last decade with increasing consensus that a public health approach is required to tackling violence. A public health approach enables us to see violence as a preventable outcome of a range of factors, such as adverse early-life events or harmful community experiences and influences, but it does not pre-define precise actions or the priorities we might attach to them.

In London, a range of recent Mayoral interventions have sought to enhance the power of the police to respond through a new dedicated Violent Crime Taskforce, and commissioned a wide range of interventions that seek to prevent future violence, co-ordinated by England’s first Violence Reduction Unit. The Unit is learning from counterparts in Glasgow, where a public health approach implemented over several years seems to have led to a fall in violence generally and knife crime in particular.

The precise focus of the PhD is open to negotiation within the parameters of youth violence, and likely specifically knife crime, and may include review/s of existing evidence to inform intervention development; consultation with key stakeholders and policy-makers to inform future interventions and/or research to evaluate interventions and programmes currently being commissioned in London or elsewhere.

Project-specific skills and experience required:

Applicants should have qualification or experience in public health or evaluation research.
Applicants should have qualifications or experience in mixed-method research approaches.

All candidates should hold a Master’s qualification (or complete their Master’s by September 2020) in an appropriate discipline and have a minimum of a 2:1 or equivalent in their first degree. Applicants should preferably have knowledge of the UK health and care system. All applicants are required to have excellent written and verbal communication skills. They should also be willing to work collaboratively in multi-disciplinary and multi-professional teams.

Enquiries email name and address:

Professor Peter Weatherburn – Peter.weatherburn@lshtm.ac.uk

Training opportunities
PhD students will be entitled to the full range of PhD training opportunities at their host institution. In addition, all PhD students will benefit from the training provided by the NIHR ARC North Thames Academy (The Academy). The Academy brings together PhD students from across ARC North Thames, to create a community of students training in applied health research. The Academy works alongside each host institution’s graduate training programme to equip students with the skills needed to work at the interface of academia and health services.

Our doctoral programme focuses on practical aspects of applied health research, such as the skills required to undertake research in health care and public health settings, to engage patients and the public in research, and to navigate relevant ethical and research governance approval systems. In addition, we aim to provide students with an understanding of how their work fits into current NHS structures and applied public health research environments. PhD students will be expected to attend and present at scientific meetings aimed at disseminating the findings of ARC research.

Publication and wider dissemination:
It is expected that results of the PhD research will be publishable in good quality, peer-reviewed academic journals and communicated at conferences. The research would also be expected to generate outputs tailored to applied health research, public health practitioner, and policy-making audiences.

Eligibility
Candidates should hold a Master’s qualification in a relevant discipline (or complete their Master’s by September 2020) and have a minimum of a 2:1 or equivalent in their first degree. Applicants should preferably have knowledge of the UK health and care system. All applicants require excellent written and verbal communication skills and should be willing to work collaboratively in multi-disciplinary and multi-professional teams.
Due to funding restrictions, applicants must be UK/EU nationals. Please refer to UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) for the criteria.

How to apply
If you have queries about potential projects or would like to discuss these in more detail, please contact the appropriate supervisors by email. In case of any difficulties in making contact, please email ARC.academy@ucl.ac.uk 

Your application should consist of:

• A CV (to include qualifications, work experience, publications, presentations and prizes) plus contact details of two academic referees (references will be taken up for all shortlisted candidates).
• A personal statement (300 words) describing your suitability for the proposed project including how your research experience, skills and interests relate to the topic.
• A 1-page proposal of how you would develop the PhD project that you are applying for.

Please send your application to ARC.academy@ucl.ac.uk