School of Social Work and Social Policy

• Head of School: Dr. Stephanie Holt
• Director of Teaching & Learning (Postgraduate): Dr Erna O'Connor
• Telephone: + 353-1-896 3593
• Email: jennifer.otoole@tcd.ie
• Url: www.tcd.ie/swsp/postgraduate/phd-programme
• How to apply: Please see links below

School Description:

The School offers professional education and training in social work, multidisciplinary courses in the broad social welfare area, courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level in general and specialist aspects of social policy, and postgraduate training in applied social research, as well a range of opportunities for postgraduate research students. The School is pleased to acknowledge the special public sector, corporate and philanthropic support it attracts for a number of its teaching and research activities.

Through high quality scholarship, the School seeks to identify, explore and impact on key social issues.

Research Programmes

The School has a lively community of postgraduate research students, whether studying independently or within research centres or programmes. Some are full-time students; others combine their studies with their work.

The School has particular strengths and capacity in research supervision in the following areas:

Ageing and social policy; Drug and alcohol policy and services; Child protection and welfare; Criminology and penology, Domestic violence; Family and gender; History of social policy; Immigration and Social Policy, Intellectual disability; Mental health; Social work; Sociology of reproduction.

In addition to the research activities of individual academic staff, the research effort of the School is also focused through the following significant research ventures.

The Children’s Research Centre conducts policy relevant research on children’s lives and issues and is co-sponsored with the School of Psychology. With other TCD colleagues, Centre personnel will play a significant role in the major National Longitudinal Study on Children’s Development, the contract for which was awarded to the Economic and Social Research Institute and Trinity College Dublin.

The Policy Institute is a multi-disciplinary public policy research institute. Based in Trinity College, the Institute has close links with the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, the School of Social Work and Social Policy, and the School of Business.

The School is also one of the three Schools in the University that founded the Trinity Immigration Initiative which brings together key strands of TCD’s strategies in research, teaching and contribution to society, positioning the University to play an influential role in developing a more inclusive, multicultural society for Ireland’s future.

In exceptional circumstances it may be possible to register retrospectively. Applicants wishing to be considered for retrospective admission should contact the Graduate Studies Office by emailing research.admissions@tcd.ie