Welcome to the Centre for Lifelong Learning and thank you for your interest in pursuing a PhD with us.

Our department supports a wide range of research projects within the broad field of lifelong learning. We focus particularly on research related to people-focused professions linked to lifelong learning. These professions include early childhood practice, adult education, career development work, coaching, counselling, psychotherapy, and social work. We also support research related to widening participation, formal/informal learning, and linked areas of social studies.

The field of lifelong learning is interpreted in broad terms to embrace the four pillars of a learning society identified by UNESCO.

• First, learning to live together - developing our understanding of others.
• Second, learning to know - gaining general knowledge.
• Third, learning to do - dealing with a variety of situations including work.
• And fourth, learning to be - developing independence, judgement, and common goals (Elfert, 2015).

We also see learning as taking place throughout our lives from birth through childhood and adulthood to the end of life. It includes lifewide learning across our many different social roles (e.g. worker, student, carer, friend, partner, citizen) and social spaces (e.g. education, home, work, community, leisure, civic) undergirded by appropriate social supports. Learning is also lifedeep and extends to learning in the particular socio-cultural contexts that give rise to our distinctive values, beliefs, and identities (Bélanger, 2016).

We very much welcome your life experience in CLL and hope that, as a potential researcher in our Centre, you can identify with this vision. We are open to a wide variety of creative and well-crafted research projects with potential for individual, social, and/or cultural transformation. We offer the option for you to study for your PhD via remote learning.