Locating your research

In the School of Politics and International Studies, we are keen to make sure that your research links as closely as possible to our own research interests and expertise. Before you develop your research proposal, it is important that you spend some time trying to understand our research, and whether your own research is likely to fit with our priorities.

We are currently welcoming applications within the following research areas: 

Centre for Global Development

• Climate change 
• Water and sanitation
• Global health
• Agricultural transformations
• Education
• Migration
• Political economy of development
• Governance, institutions, policies and systems
• Power, agency and resistance
• Gender and structural inequalities
• Local development and local knowledges about development
• Civil society and activism

Find out more about our research in the Centre for Global Development

Centre for Global Security Challenges

• Environmental security and violence
• Climate, security and governance
• Gender, security and violence
• Gender, power and representation
• AUKUS, Global Britain, and the Anglosphere
• The rise of China
• British and EU security and diplomatic strategy
• Nuclear weapons
• Health systems and health security   
• Conflict drivers and the causes of war
• Insurgency and counter-insurgency
• Peacebuilding
• Terrorism, Political Violence and Violent Extremism

Find out more about our research in the Centre for Global Security Challenges

Centre for Democratic Engagement

• Theory and practice of politics
• Populism and anti-populism
• Political representation
• Political communication
• Direct, participatory and representative democracy.
• Political engagement and E-petitions
• Prime Ministerial Leadership
• Normative change and the climate emergency

Find out more about our research in the Centre for Democratic Engagement

European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (ECR2P)

• R2P and Norm Theory
• Human Solidarity and Refugees
• Early Warning, Conflict and Mass Atrocity Prevention
• Military Intervention and Peacekeeping
• R2P and European Policies
• International Criminal Court

Find out more about our research in the European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (ECR2P)

Centre for Contemporary Political Theory

• Citizenship
• Solidarity
• Global justice
• Responsibility
• Friendship
• Cosmopolitanism
• Arts engagement and storytelling

Find out more about our research in the Centre for Contemporary Political Theory