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School: Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences

About the School

From unravelling the secrets of the ageing process to shaping tomorrow’s speech technologies, the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences is at the forefront of innovation.

The School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences (PPLS) offers a rich environment for postgraduate study and research. Our students benefit from the close links between the three core teaching areas, as well as from our connections with other world-class research groups at the University and beyond.

Philosophy

The University of Edinburgh’s thriving Philosophy unit is one of the largest in the UK with more than 30 full-time members of staff. We host a vibrant community of about 100 postgraduate students who have access to a wealth of research expertise. Our research programme covers most aspects of philosophy, with particular strengths in epistemology, ethics, history of philosophy (especially ancient and early modern philosophy), philosophy of mind and cognition, philosophy of science, logic and philosophy of language.

Psychology

Psychology has been taught at Edinburgh for more than 100 years, and our research programme has expanded rapidly over the past decade. By joining us you will become part of a large and active postgraduate community, working alongside world leading academic staff, including the editors of major journals in the field. Our research is organised into four broad themes: developmental psychology, differential psychology, human cognitive neuroscience, and language, cognition and communication. Psychology researchers collaborate closely with colleagues elsewhere in PPLS and the University. We have a strong presence in the Human Communication Research Centre and in the Scottish Imaging Network (SINAPSE), and we host the internationally important Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (CCACE).

Linguistics and English Language

Edinburgh was one of the first universities in the UK to teach linguistics and this helped position us as second in the UK overall for modern languages and linguistics (Times Higher Education, overall ranking REF 2014). We’re also ranked in the top five in the world for linguistics in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2018. We offer a wide range of postgraduate programmes supervised and taught by world-leading experts. Courses and topic areas cover traditional areas like phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, as well as related areas such as sociolinguistics, pragmatics, speech technology, language acquisition, language evolution and more. In addition to our groundbreaking work in core areas of linguistics, we are one of Europe’s largest interdisciplinary centres, producing highly rated work engaging with disciplines including biology, education, psychology, cognitive science, and speech and language technologies.

Research excellence

In the last Research Excellence Framework all three of our core areas were highly ranked. We were ranked 2nd in the UK by overall GPA for modern languages and linguistics, 7th in the UK by overall GPA for philosophy, and 11th in the UK by overall GPA for psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience (Times Higher Education, Overall Ranking REF 2014).

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We offer a range of options for postgraduate study: from professional qualifications to independent research, on-campus taught programmes to part-time, online study. Find out which graduate study option is right for you: