PhD Researcher in Sociology

Post Status: Fixed-term Contract – Full-time (48 months) 

Research Group / Department / School: Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin 

Location: Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland 

Reports to: Associate Professor Camilla Devitt 

Stipend: Maintenance stipend €18,500 per annum plus full tuition fees (EU/non-EU). In addition, the Department offers a teaching assistantship as non-stipend pay. 

Closing Date: 23:00 (GMT), 07 April 2026

Post Summary 

The candidate will join the PhD programme at the Department of Sociology of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland’s leading university which is located on a historic campus in the heart of Dublin. The Department will provide all logistic, academic and intellectual support and integrate the successful candidate into a vibrant doctoral programme at TCD, while offering additional economic supports to cover fees and basic expenses related to the PhD programme. PhD students at the department are embedded in the interdisciplinary context of the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy which also includes economics, political science, and philosophy. 

PhD students in Sociology enjoy a wide range of training opportunities. For example, students participate in a research training programme in the department and have the opportunity to join masters level courses (including courses on research methods). Moreover, our PhD students are supported to attend high-quality international workshops and summer schools. 

PhD students are expected to collaborate closely with their supervisors and will produce a PhD based on four papers of a publishable standard. PhD students also acquire teaching experience by providing teaching support in our undergraduate programme (4 hours per week during term times). 

The Department of Sociology at Trinity College is offering a stipend for an outstanding doctoral student to join the PhD in Sociology degree programme for a period of 48 months. The person appointed will conduct an innovative PhD project on a) social attitudes to taxation and social spending or b) migration and employment. We are seeking applicants who are motivated to work on one of the following two streams of research, funded by the department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin: 

Stream 1: Social Attitudes to Taxation and Social Spending 

The person appointment will conduct a PhD project on social attitudes to taxation and social spending in Ireland, with potential for a cross-national comparison. The project builds on existing research in the inter-disciplinary field of fiscal sociology, as well as sociological research on welfare attitudes. The study will investigate how institutional arrangements, cultures, values, beliefs, interests and knowledge influence the attitudes of different social groups. It uses a multi-method qualitative case-study design to gather data from social groups, with potential for the integration of mixed methods research. Questions to be examined include but are not limited to: How does political orientation interact with income and education in shaping tax attitudes? How do beliefs about the direction and efficiency of social spending impact tax attitudes? How do attitudes to immigration and taxation relate? The successful candidate will be integrated into a PhD project that will provide an innovative approach to the study of taxation and social spending attitudes in Ireland. The project will give the student an opportunity to carry out theoretically informed and policy relevant empirical research that will generate new knowledge. 

The successful applicant will gain skills in project management, research communication and policy-oriented research practice.

Applicants to Stream 1 are asked to submit a research statement that demonstrates how their research background and skills match with the project. 

Stream 2: Open project on migration and employment 

In this stream, applicants may propose their own research proposal, which connects to one of the following broad thematic fields in research on migration and employment: 

• Determinants of labour migration to specific destinations in Europe. 

• Migratory pathways into European labour markets from visa/permit applications to interactions with recruiters. 

• Employer formal and informal hiring strategies. 

The successful applicant will gain skills in project management, research communication and policy-oriented research practice. Applicants to Stream 2 are asked to submit a research proposal that specifies a research objective and question, background and relevance, theoretical framework and methods of analysis. 

Major research activities conducted by the PhD candidate in both streams will involve: 

1) Reviewing the relevant literature; 

2) Designing a range of research instruments including, for example, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, creative participatory methods and surveys; 

3) Engaging in summarising and interpreting results for social science audiences with policy implications; 

4) Presenting work in front of different audiences at a local, national and international level in conferences or networks; and 

5) Publishing four journal articles arising from the study with the Supervisor.

Qualifications 

• MA, MSc or MPhil in Sociology, Social Policy or in any cognate fields (thesis should be either defended or submitted)