Departmental website: lse.ac.uk/socialPolicy|
Number of graduate students (full-time equivalent)
Taught: 330
Research: 62
Number of faculty (full-time equivalent): 32
RAE: 80% of the Department's research was rated world leading or internationally excellent
Location: Old Building
About the Department
Crime, education, health care, housing, population, social care, social exclusion, social security, welfare: the problems and challenges in all these areas are as inescapable and relentless as they have ever been. We equip people who want to understand the causes of these problems and the development of policy towards them.
The Department has consistently received the highest possible grade in the national research assessment exercises. In the most recent RAE, the Department led the field nationally when ranked by Grade Point Average or by the percentage of research receiving the top A* grade and half of its research was recognised as world leading.
Our research programmes and centres, such as the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE), LSE Health and Social Care, the Mannheim Centre for Criminology and the Education Research Group, have outstanding national and international reputations. We have a long standing and deep interest in social policy, planning and related issues in developing countries.
Our reputation is based on a history which dates back to 1912 when social policy was first taught at LSE. This tradition, combining action and research, continued with the contributions of LSE staff such as Richard Titmuss, Peter Townsend, Brian Abel-Smith and David Donnison to the development of social policy and building of the welfare state in Britain and similar developments abroad.
We are actively engaged in local, national and international policy debates, and provide policy advice to government bodies, and assistance to international and local organisations. LSE is also home to Population Studies, one of the world's leading demographic journals.
Study in this area leads to a wide variety of careers that are challenging, socially important, intellectually demanding and personally rewarding. Students go on to senior policy related and academic positions in countries throughout the world.
Staff and their academic interests
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Dr Mrigesh Bhatia: Health policy issues in low income countries; economic evaluation of health care programmes.
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Dr Tania Burchardt: Theories of social justice including the capability approach; poverty and inequality; concepts and measurement of social disadvantage; welfare and employment policy.
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Dr Ernestina Coast: Anthropological demography; demographic data collection in developing countries; Maasai ethnic group.
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Dr Joan Costa i Font: Economics of European welfare states; welfare state federalism, integration and devolution; non-market welfare motivations and social identity; risk learning and health behaviour and regulation of pharmaceuticals.
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Professor Hartley Dean: Poverty and exclusion; welfare rights, citizenship and rights of redress; survival strategies of marginalised social groups; discourses of welfare.
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Professor Paul Dolan: Developing measures for subjective well-being; applying lessons from behavioural economics to understand and change individual behaviour.
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Dr Sonia Exley: Education policy; school choice; pupil segregation between schools; social deprivation; the politics of policy making; policy networks; policy sociology; the changing role of the state in public services.
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Dr Timo Fleckenstein: Comparative labour market and family policy; comparative political economy of the welfare state; politics of social policy.
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Dr Arjan Gjonca: Health transition in developing societies; diet and longevity; ageing; demography of the Balkans.
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Professor Stephen Jenkins: Income inequality and poverty; income mobility and poverty dynamics; household and families, the labour market and tax-benefit system; quantitative analysis using microeconometric methods.
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Dr Anthony Hall: Impact of development policies in Brazilian Amazonia; development and natural resource conservation; involuntary resettlement; social policy and the environment.
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Professor John Hills: Social security; social exclusion; welfare state; housing finance; taxation; public finance.
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Dr Armine Ishkanian: NGOs; civil society; social policy; gender; globalisation; anthropological approaches to development in post-socialist countries particularly in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
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Dr Panos Kanavos: International health policy and reform; pharmaceutical economics and policy; industrial economics of health-related industries; applied macroeconometrics; socio-economic determinants of health.
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Professor Martin Knapp: Community care; mental health policy and practice; mixed economy of social care; economic aspects of social policy; child welfare.
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Dr Sunil Kumar: Housing in developing countries; urban change and social development; participation and urban politics.
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Professor Julian Le Grand: Social policy, especially health and community care; welfare reform; social justice in theory and practice; social exclusion; motivation and public policy.
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Professor David Lewis: Management of non-governmental organisations (NGOs); social policy and development in south Asia, especially Bangladesh; civil society and development; rural development.
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Professor Jane Lewis: Gender and family policies, historically and comparatively; non-profit sector; development of work/family reconciliation and work/life balance policies; the conceptualisation of care work.
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Dr Bingqin Li: Social policy reforms in China; social exclusion of rural to urban migrants in transitional urban China; urban policy and equality; housing and urban growth.
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Dr Steen Mangen: European social policy; German social state; German unification; post-Franco Spain; urban regeneration in Europe; cross-national research methods.
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Professor Alistair McGuire: Econometric analysis of NHS hospital costs; public and private health care interaction; demand for private health care insurance; nursing labour markets in the NHS; regulation of health care technology through economic evaluation.
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Professor Elias Mossialos: Comparative health policy; funding health care; pharmaceutical policies, health care reforms; private health care insurance; the impact of EU law on health care systems.
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Professor Eileen Munro: Risk management; social work with children and families; child protection; mental health and risk; nature of knowledge in social work; evaluative research methods.
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Professor Mike Murphy: Population change in western societies; intergenerational relations; household and family formation methods; the modelling of kinship; the demography of developed societies; genetic aspects of demography.
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Professor Tim Newburn: Crime and criminal justice policy; the sociology and governance of policing and security; disadvantaged and disaffected young people; youth crime and youth justice, drugs and alcohol; hate crime; evaluation research.
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Dr Adam Oliver: Health care economics and policy; European health care policy reform; equity in health and health care; the methods of health economic evaluation; the theory of risk and uncertainty with specific application to health outcomes.
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Dr Coretta Phillips: Race, ethnicity and social policy (particularly crime and criminal justice); multi-agency partnership working; crime prevention; research methodology.
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Professor David Piachaud: Poverty and social security; unemployment and social exclusion; European social policy.
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Professor Anne Power: Social exclusion; housing policy and development; international urban issues; European social housing; unpopular housing estates; inner city problems; communities.
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Dr Caroline Rudisill: Anti-competitive behaviour; health system reform and risk perceptions.
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Dr Hakan Seckinelgin: International relations; management of non-governmental organisations (NGOs); NGOs and international health; environment; gender issues.
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Dr Michael Shiner: Young people and transitions to adulthood; drugs and drugs policy; social exclusion, crime and crime prevention; 'race' and ethnicity; the role of the community in social policy.
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Dr Kitty Stewart: Poverty, inequality and social exclusion; early years education and childcare; social security; employment and wage trajectories.
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Professor Anne West: Education policy and practice, in particular market reforms and associated equity issues; financing education; education and training policy in a European context.
Opportunities for research
We welcome applications from students for our research degrees, both full-time and part-time. The Department has approximately 100 research students and is able to offer supervision in a wide range of specialist topics. Students are members of a vibrant and exciting research community. The LSE Library has a full collection of UK, US and EU public documents, parliamentary papers and statistical data. High class networked computer facilities dedicated to research students exist in the Social Science Research Laboratory within the Department. A wide range of computer packages for quantitative and qualitative analysis are available.
PhD students attend a seminar series run by the research students' tutors and are also encouraged to take courses on research methods in the Methodology Institute and on other areas of relevance to their thesis topic. Students have the opportunity to attend various courses related to carrying out a PhD, and to present their research.
Applicants for the MPhil/PhD programme should have a good master's degree, preferably in social policy or public policy, together with an upper second or first class honours degree from a UK university or its equivalent abroad. Graduates will normally need a high merit or distinction (or equivalent) in their MSc to be eligible for admission to the doctoral programme.
For the MPhil/PhD programme, applicants should provide a written proposal of no more than 1,500 words, which gives details of the proposed research question(s), the relevant literature and previous research in the field, planned research methods and theoretical/conceptual framework to be adopted. This will enable an informed decision about the proposal to be made and to establish if there are appropriate supervisors for the research. Initially students are registered for an MPhil degree. At the end of the first year on the MPhil programme, students submit a piece of written work, of up to 10,000 words, and if progress is satisfactory they transfer retrospectively to the PhD programme; alternatively, they continue with their MPhil registration, or their registration ends.
Certain UK/EU applicants may be eligible for the ESRC 1+3 programme (see Economic and Social Research Council|). Students on this programme take a recognised MSc in their first year. Transfer from the one year MSc programme to the three year MPhil/PhD programme depends on obtaining high marks in the MSc courses taken.
Registration as a visiting research student is for those who do not wish to proceed to a higher degree, but want to pursue their own research with a supervisor who can support them in their research. Visiting research students include research and doctoral students registered at overseas universities wishing to undertake some aspect of their research in the UK. Certain seminars and classes can be attended subject to the advice and approval of the supervisor and teachers concerned.
Taught programmes
Programmes on health and health policy
Programmes on population studies
Programmes on social policy
Social Policy is also available as a specialist field in the MSc Social Research Methods (Social Policy) and MSc Social Research Methods (Population). See (MSc Social Research Methods|).