I asked for some suggestions here a few months ago about finding an MSc or doctorate on men and suicide. When I followed up the suggestions I thought I would do ok but I haven't found anything. I feel disappointed and it is like nobody in any universities are very interested in this topic. Two of my emails got no reply and the other just said there was not funding. Am I missing the point or is there just no way I can find somewhere in England to study and research this subject? Help is appreciated!!

Sorry to here you've not had much luck so far. Where did you approach?

Some suggestions:
(i) if an email doesn't get a response, do follow it up with a further email or a phone call. Academics are busy people, stuff gets lost in their inboxes, particularly if received around June-Aug (conference/holiday/planning for the new year season).
(ii) Follow up the one that said there was no funding. If they are genuinely interested in your topic, they may support you in obtaining funding in the future.
(iii) Be prepared to be a little adaptable in your topic. There are ways of making a topic 'fit' in with an existing research agenda, and then evolve it into a direction more to your interests. But it does need a bit of creativity and flexibility to do this.
(iv) consider contacting relevant charities (such as Mind) so see if they have a list of researchers/departments where they know relevant research is being carried out. They may even have their own research funding programmes.

Good luck with your search.

Just to add - I looked back to your original thread (I remembered answering on it first time around) and I think the advice that people gave that you won't find an MSc on this topic still stands. I do think there is definitely potential for PhD research in this area (assuming your existing training has adequately prepared you for a PhD), but it's probably just a case of not having found quite the right people to contact yet.

Hi psyched_out,
my advice would be to keep on sending out emails; and as HazyJane said, follow up on ones that have had no reply. It can be tedious but you will eventually get a hit if you keep searching.

When I was an undergraduate I chose to do a research project in my final year, and part of this entailed emailing academics to ask if they had any footage I could use to help with my research. I must have sent out a good forty emails or so. Only a very small minority of the academics I emailed were able to help (if I recall rightly, five or six).

Basically, it might be a long search, but you will find someone who is interested if you keep looking.

Silver

Thanks everyone for your ideas. I really appreciate your help! I got a reply from one of the universities and they gave a couple of names to try. I will keep trying until I find something!

Hi psyched_out,

I am waiting to be viva'd on a PhD investigating suicide by area in England and Wales, and my MSc dissertation a few years ago was investigating suicide method. My advice would be to seriously think about your subject before you approach universities in order to decide on a department. The subject area of suicide in men is huge in terms of the literature, so I would think about how you plan to approach this (methodology), and what aspect of suicide in men in particular you're interested in. My studies were in a social statistics department, where I fitted in due to the methodology used, and the subject matter was somewhat incidental. It may be that you could do something similar.

It's worth bearing in mind that it's likely that you may struggle to gain access to suicide data, as it is understandably very sensitive. You may be able to access the data through the Office for National Statistics (ONS), either by applying for Approved Researcher Status with them, or by using their published aggregate numbers. Another useful source of data is the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness (NCISH). They have allowed PhD researchers to access the data before, but are not an academic department and so do not run the PhDs. If you are planning to collect data yourself, you will have to do a lot of ethics! I used data from the ONS and NCISH, under strict confidentiality and data security guidelines.

I realise I may be repeating things you already know, but if not, then hopefully this can be of some help to start thinking about these things. I would suggest that if you have a clear plan (including methodology), you could fit in to any psychology, sociology or medical research department. It may be that you have to put in a bit more planning now in order to persuade them.

Hope this helps a little.

Hi psyched-out. There are some really good suggestions here, especially from phdpoots. I think it will be easier in the next few years to find academic interest in this topic because men's issues in general are coming to the fore (e.g. help seeking behaviour, sex differences in treatment outcomes etc). I am pretty sure that the topic of suicide will feature in the Male Psychology conference in London next June http://www.malepsychology.org.uk/ so it is something that you might find interesting to attend if you are able to. It's likely that funding will go this way too, as there are some serious issues around men's health that haven't had any real attention for decades e.g. prostate cancer screening.