MRes/PGDip/PGCert Health and Social Care

Fees for entry in 2027 have not yet been set. For reference, the fees for the academic year beginning September 2026 were as follows:

• MRes (full-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £12,600
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £27,300
• MRes (part-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £6,300
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £13,650
• PGDip (full-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £10,100
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £21,800
• PGDip (part-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £5,050
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £10,900
• PGCert (part-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £2,500
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £5,500

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

NIHR INSIGHT research master's degree studentships

Funded health and social care research master's studentships are available through the north-west regional programme of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) INSIGHT Inspiring Students into Research scheme.

For more information and details of how to apply, visit the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast website .

NIHR Pre-doctoral Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowships

NIHR Pre-doctoral Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowships can offer successful candidates backfill and fees to undertake MClinRes units and to prepare a Doctoral Clinical Practitioner Academic Fellowship application. You need to apply directly to NIHR for one of these awards.

For the latest scholarship and bursary information please visit the fees and funding page.

This course unit introduces students to the principles that guide identification of researchable questions, formulation of appropriate research designs and methods. The course unit will emphasise the potential for qualitative and quantitative approaches to be complementary as well as exploring their distinctive features.

• Equip students with an in-depth understanding of research design principles and the methods used in a range of study designs.
• Enable students to formulate timely and coherent research questions/hypotheses which are relevant to health and social care practice. 

• Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a range of qualitative, quantitative and mixed research designs (including those used in the development and evaluation of complex interventions) 
• Critically examine methods of sampling, data collection, including issues of reliability and validity, in qualitative and quantitative research
• Critically explore a range of analytic strategies used to handle, interpret and present qualitative and quantitative data

• Formulate appropriate research questions, objectives and hypotheses relevant to health and social care practice
• Select with rationale, appropriate designs and methods to answer research questions
• Critically consider how methodological principles should be operationalised in a proposed research study

• Develop skills in writing and formulating clear and relevant research questions/hypotheses
• Write coherent and well-justified research proposals which address problems/issues relevant to health and social care research

• Critically reflect on their own academic performance and utilise a range of strategies to improve these and overcome any particular difficulties.
• Further develop and enhance skills in effective communication to a range of audiences in a variety of settings.
• Demonstrate skills in working collegiately and effectively with others as a member of a team.
• Effectively utilise information technology and health informatics.
• Utilise skills in systematic and creative approaches to problem-solving and decision-making to complex issues.

Students will normally have the opportunity to receive feedback on formative work submitted prior to the summative assessment. Other feedback opportunities will also be available in class and online discussion boards. Online feedback is provided in Grademark. Provisional feedback based on internal marking will be made available prior to the Exam Board on the basis that these marks are yet to be ratified at the Exam Board and therefore may be subject to change. A standard feedback mechanism in Grademark is utilised across all postgraduate programmes within the School which provides detailed and constructive feedback on each component and aspect of assessment and identifies areas of strength and those aspects which could be enhanced.

Student feedback is obtained through open discussion forums on VLE's, in class discussions, via formal University unit evaluation forms and also qualitative, in house evaluations at the end of the unit. 

Creswell, J.W (2023) Research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches, Thousand Oaks, California, Sage. 
Denscombe M. (2021) The good research guide: research methods for small-scale social research projects, London Open University Press.
Polit, DF, Beck CT (2020) Nursing research, Philadephia, Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins