University College London

Evidence-based healthcare has taken root as one of the central pillars of modern medicine. Arguably, the delivery of healthcare based on scientific evidence has never been more important, as we grapple with unexplained variations in practice and spiraling healthcare costs. Despite its widespread importance for rational decision making, the ideal of truly evidence-based healthcare remains elusive. This course is highly engaging and interactive and supports students in developing the necessary skills to be effective and critical practitioners of evidence-based healthcare. Students learn to apply these principles in their studies and in their professional clinical careers. Students also have the opportunity to experience a research environment by meeting researchers in the field and completing a group project under supervision and presenting the results orally.

This course introduces students to the structure of the British political system and the functioning of British politics in practice. Students start by exploring the social foundations of politics in the UK, looking at the roles of various national identities and of class, gender, and ethnicity. They also explore the main institutions and players in the UK system, setting these within a comparative context. Students seek to understand how the various parts of the system interact with each other in determining the character of the democratic process and the nature of policy outcomes.

This course explores what is arguably the paradigmatic exercise of state power: the decision to criminalize some conduct, and accordingly to punish those who engage in it. It gives students an opportunity to think about these and other issues in an intellectual search for the moral principles that ought to govern how crime and punishment are approached. Students read and argue with each other about important work in contemporary political, moral, and legal philosophy, applying what they learn to pressing political controversies.

This course provides students with an understanding of the tools and techniques required to interface between mechanical components and the wider world, involving sensing, actuation (e.g. motors) modelling and control.

This course explores what human rights are and the different explanations of where rights come from. How human rights have changed and become imbedded in international law since World War II is explored. An understanding of the political advantage governments seek through violating human rights is sought and the economic and social consequences of repression, examined. Whether previous cycles of repression - like slavery, for example - make countries more likely to use violence today, are considered. Real-world examples are used to test and illustrate the arguments made in the literature - the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and the former conflicts in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland are a few examples.