3 UK universities offering the perfect launchpad for your Life and Health Sciences career

Becoming an expert in Health and Life Sciences sets you up to be the next person to inspire better robots, medicine, and environmental technologies that could further meet the health needs of the world. Think microbiologist, biotechnologist, pharmacologist, soil scientist, and many more jobs that’ll not only offer you professional fulfilment but positively impact the health and wellbeing of your city, your country and your planet.

The best universities understand the importance of setting you up for the next phase in your career whilst training you to make significant, tangible outcomes for society.

University of Liverpool

Great things — that’s what a Health and Life Sciences master’s degree from the University of Liverpool’s (UoL) can help you achieve. Time spent at the original “redbrick” university and a member of the Russell Group – an elite group of research-intensive UK universities — is time well spent to realise your potential.

You’ll learn from world-leading researchers, the very same people who made UoL top 20 in the UK for research excellence (REF 2021), top 80 in the world in Life Sciences and Medicine in the QS World University Rankings 2023 and Gold-rated, the highest rating, in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023. Researchers here secure ~170 million pounds annually for research projects which include having developed a first-of-its-kind questionnaire to assess the impact of post-brain injury visual impairment, secured investment to help improve healthcare through data science, started a new longitudinal birth cohort focused on improving the health and wellbeing of children and their families, established the Malawi Liverpool Welcome Programme for research and training in southern Africa, and identified gaps in care for patients with serious mental illness, calling for policy reform in the management of antipsychotic medication. These are just a few examples from March 2024 alone.

Choose one of many master’s degrees offered by the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences and you could be part of this exciting and innovative ecosystem. The faculty offers the broadest array of health and life sciences subjects within a single faculty. These include master’s degrees in Biological and Biomedical Sciences and Health Sciences to Psychology and Veterinary Science.

From DNAs to the health data of entire populations and everything in between, there are lots to explore here alongside over 900 members of research staff — within and beyond your discipline. There are no narrow silos — only a pursuit of education and new knowledge that’s filled with camaraderie, intellectual rigour and originality.

Liverpool, the city, is just as open, energetic and vibrant. Renowned for its humour, music and sporting heritage, you would be living in the city named by Time Out magazine as the sixth best city in the world. Served by its own international airport, this friendly city by the sea is also well connected to the rest of the UK by rail and road, with both cosmopolitan London and the beautiful Lake District accessible in around two hours.  Coupled with its low living costs, is it any wonder that graduates report that Liverpool is an amazing city to live study and spend some of the most important years of your life in? Start your UoL journey today — discover courses at Faculty of Health and Life Sciences now.

Cardiff University

Cardiff University is home to a College of Biomedical and Life Sciences. Located on the coast of south Wales, the college is a vibrant academic community undertaking innovative research and providing state-of-the-art learning facilities. 

More impressively, it is the largest college in the university with over 2,000 staff and 7,000 students. It aims to be a world-leading centre of academic and clinical excellence. Renowned for its student-focused education and speciality training, the College of Biomedical and Life Sciences’s ultimate objective is to improve the health and well-being of society by producing bright minds.

The college brings together seven academic schools with immense strength in research and teaching, not just according to Welsh standards, but worldwide too. This includes Biosciences, Dentistry, Healthcare Sciences, Medicine, Optometry and Vision Sciences, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Psychology. 

At the School of Biosciences, MSc courses offered include Big Data Biology, and Global Ecology and Conservation. Over at the School of Healthcare Sciences, you can pursue master’s degrees in Advanced Clinical Practice, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Radiorgraphy, and more. There are many to choose from. Whichever programme you choose,from, you’ll be part of a community that takes your professional development seriously.

There is a leadership academy that aims to equip students with confidence to influence and lead health care and social care improvement towards the common goal of benefitting the people of Wales and beyond. “This is a wonderful opportunity for students to access speakers and leaders from practice settings, have personal coaching and work together in a supportive and interdisciplinary environment,” says Dr Alison James, a reader in Healthcare Leadership. “We are very excited to see how students’ progress and we look forward to disseminating the evaluation of the programme both within the University and wider.”

Queen’s University Belfast

Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland is a leader in research and innovation, renowned for producing highly skilled graduates. Its Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences houses the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences; School of Biological Sciences, School of Pharmacy, and School of Nursing and Midwifery. All these benefit from a perfect balance of world-class teaching resources and internationally recognised research infrastructure.

For aspiring doctors, dentists, pharmacists, physiotherapists and nurses, Queen’s University Belfast is the ideal base to launch their careers. Studying medicine here gives students a chance to experience early clinical contact with patients in the first year, choose selected components with a wide range of choices throughout the medical curriculum, and join an assistantship programme in the final year.

What’s more, the faculty consists of esteemed professors and researchers who are at the forefront of their respective fields, providing students with a high-quality education. For instance, Queen’s University Belfast supports local, national, and international efforts to expand their knowledge on COVID-19 and deploy their enhanced intelligence to develop solutions that benefit the local community and beyond.

*Some of the institutions featured in this article are commercial partners of Study International