PhD studentship: Blurred Jurisdictions, King's College London

King’s College London, in partnership with The College of Optometrists, is offering a PhD studentship to examine how optometrists cooperate with other eyecare and healthcare professionals. This doctoral project thereby investigates how optometrists maintain professional autonomy while navigating complex, multi-professional relationships.

The doctoral student will undertake case studies across diverse settings, including high street and independent practices, hospital eye departments, laser clinics, domiciliary services, and others. They will conduct qualitative interviews with eyecare and healthcare professionals and analyse professional magazines, conference proceedings and scholarly journals in the area of eyecare/health as well as government policy documents and reports related to eye health. The doctoral project will enhance our understanding of the optometry profession and the eyecare/health sector that scholars in management and organisation studies as well as in sociology have rarely investigated.

The student will benefit from being supervised by a team of social scientists based at King’s Business School and optometrists based at The College of Optometrists.

Applicants must have a 1^st or good 2:1 degree, preferably in a related social science discipline, and must hold a relevant master’s degree, that included a dissertation module.

Applicants will also be required to demonstrate some applied knowledge of qualitative research methodologies, including qualitative interviewing, ethnography, and document analysis. However, when joining the KBS PhD programme the student will receive support and training in both qualitative and quantitative research methods as part of the PhD.