Research

The School of Government and Society brings together academic staff, research fellows and doctoral researchers across the Social Sciences. The School is one of the leading UK and international centres for Politics, International Relations, International Development, Sociology and European Studies.

A particularly strength of the School lies in the prominent international dimension of research expertise. Expertise across the School currently sit within our departments which include:

Journals edited throughout the School

The School is committed to excellent standards of academic research, policy work and related knowledge transfer activities. Staff members engage in high profile international research and policy and practice networks as well as delivering a range of taught masters and research degree programmes .

The combination of disciplinary strength and interdisciplinary effectiveness across the School allows colleagues to develop collaborative teaching and research projects, to generate research income and to further develop effective knowledge transfer activities.

The School has a number of staff whose reputation attests to their international esteem and impact in academia and among other research users. In addition, early career academics with considerable future potential for producing internationally excellent and world leading research have been actively recruited.

Highlighted research projects

Shrinking the state: analysing the reform of arm's length bodies (2012 - 15)

Description
This three year project will analyse the UK Coalition Government's major reform of 'arm's length bodies' (ALBs – often called 'quangos'). Quangos are a frequent focus for public, political and media criticism, regarded as unaccountable, wasteful, and self-serving. But they are also indispensible to modern government, preventing ministers from becoming overloaded, bringing expert advice and management to complex policy issues, and undertaking regulatory and quasi-judicial tasks that need to be politically independent.

PEACE - Local Ownership and Peace Missions (2011 - 13)

Description
A team of researchers at IDD has won EU funding for a project that could help transform international peacebuilding and statebuilding missions. Dr. Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, supervised by Professor Paul Jackson and Dr Heather Marquette, has begun a two-year Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship that will deepen understanding of 'local ownership'.

Institutions, Institutional Change, and the Defence Policy of the European Union (2010 - 13)

Description
The aim of the proposed project is to carry out detailed research, via both documentary evidence and interviews with policy makers, in order to assess the validity of these competing claims.

More research projects throughout the school

The School enjoys close links with College of Social Science Research Centres, the Advanced Social Science Collaborative (ASSC) and the University’s Graduate School. Research across the School is supported by the College Research Support Office Finance and Marketing.