Welcome
Message from the Dean
Welcome to the School of Social Sciences and Humanities. The School is a vibrant community of academics, taught students and doctoral researchers, and professional services colleagues, who work collectively and collaboratively to enhance knowledge in Social Sciences and Humanities that will change the world. Our research and education spans the social and environmental sciences and humanities, and we address key questions of political importance and the factors that create and can foster change. Our unique collection of departments presents opportunities to address globally important questions from a variety of trans- and inter-disciplinary perspectives, in our education and research.
Highlights of our research can be found here and include major work with societal impact from: defining the living wage; transforming energy in developing countries to support carbon neutral development; analysing how the media have forged and transformed political debates about Brexit, general elections; analysing mis-information; using our expertise in communication to ensure positive outcomes of healthcare conversations around death, and mental health, and other critical interventions, about children and vulnerable groups. We have world-leading research centred in the (Centre for Research in Communication and Culture), in (Centre for Research in Social Policy) and in STEER (黑料网 Centre for Sustainable Transitions: Energy, Environment and Resilience). These are globally leading in their research outputs and impact. More broadly, across the School, our research addresses some of the key challenges of our times including discrimination and exclusion in an unequal world, recovering and amplifying the voices of lost and marginalised people, achieving environmentally sound management in an era of unprecedented environmental change, and finding solutions to the challenge facing democracy and dialogue in a post-truth world. Research informed teaching is central to what we do, and all of your studies are routed within current cutting-edge research, and through your engagement in learning, you inform and challenge our research.
As a student in the School, you will be at home within one of our Departments – Communication and Media, Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, English, Geography and Environment, or International Relations, Politics and History, with a choice of 22 undergraduate and 12 postgraduate programmes. All of our undergraduate students benefit from the opportunity to undertake a placement, study exchange internationally, or a combination of both. As part of your course you can study a language at an appropriate level with the University Language Centre, which is housed in our Social Sciences and Humanities School. Our education and student experience provides ‘memorable moments of learning’. Active learning experiences, such as visits and fieldwork, are critical components of many of our degrees. After leaving the School, our students continue to excel in employment and further study.
When you join our School, whether as a student or a colleague, we invite you to share, create and develop our community and the many exciting opportunities that this brings.
Professor Elizabeth Peel
Dean (Acting) of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities
