This studentship is part of the cross-national €1.5m NORFACE research project WelfSOC. The project uses innovative methods (deliberative democratic forums and a qualitative cross-national focus group survey) alongside analysis of quantitative survey data. It is the first project to use qualitative methods on such a scale in the comparative study of European social policy. The studentship offers: The opportunity to work as part of a team on a major international project. The opportunity to spend time as an academic visitor to the various projects in Denmark, Germany, Norway and Slovenia. Supervision with leading international scholars. Possible research topics: What is the impact of immigration on attitudes? How are the attitudes of middle class people changing? Do the public support for social investment welfare states? How can effective policies be developed when many people distrust welfare claimants? How has increased inequality affected welfare attitudes? The applicant may also propose a different topic in the field of public attitudes towards the welfare state. The project will contribute to theoretical work on the main cleavages and solidarities driving social policy in different European welfare states and to more practical consideration of the parameters of acceptable policy change. It will supply new findings relevant to the politics and sociology of welfare and provide data for reanalysis and as a base-line in future studies. It is one of 14 funded as part of the €18m Norface Welfare State Futures Initiative and is led by the UK team. The researchers have led a number of major cross-national projects and will press home findings in national and EU-level policy debate. SSPSSR at the University of Kent has a world-wide reputation for excellence. The 2014 Research Excellence Framework ranked us second in the UK for research power and awarded our research environment the highest rating possible of 4*. Successful candidates will have obtained a 1st or good 2.1 undergraduate degree in a relevant subject, and ordinarily an MA or MSc at Merit or Distinction level. The scholarship covers tuition fees at the postgraduate standard home/EU rate (£3,996) in addition to an annual maintenance stipend of £13,863 per annum (for entry in September/October 2015 only). Application procedure: Please apply for a PhD in Social Policy at the University of Kent - online application. Enter ‘School Scholarship’ under ‘Mode of Funding’, head the description of your research proposal ‘WelfSOC PhD Studentship’ and put Peter Taylor-Gooby as supervisor. For questions about the research project, please email Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby, Dr Benjamin Leruth or Dr Heejung Chung; for questions about the application process please email the postgraduate office: sspssr-pg-admin@kent.ac.uk Please note: Applications should include a research proposal of up to 12,000 characters words in one of the above areas which should include the applicant’s knowledge of and experience in the field of welfare state attitude research and qualitative and quantitative attitude research methods. Applications should include two references and should be received by Friday 27 March 2015 In order to fulfil the requirements of a scholarship, international students must be eligible to work in the UK. See Guidance on Checking Eligibility to work in the UK If successful, international applicants will be responsible for covering the difference in fees between the European/home and international rate. The deadline for applications is Friday 27 March 2015. Interviews will be held in the week beginning April 13 (date to be confirmed) on our Canterbury campus. http://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/studying/scholarships-and-bursaries/index.html?tab=postgraduate-research Application Deadline : 27 March 2015