Welcome to the School of Social and Political Sciences. We take an interdisciplinary approach to the Social Sciences making a dynamic and engaging teaching and research environment. By linking core Social Science disciplines we deliver high-quality undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and cutting-edge research. We offer a wide variety of courses for everyone interested in the development and impact of economies and societies globally. Our undergraduate and postgraduate courses provide knowledge, skills and training relevant to a broad range of careers, and the flexibility of our courses and their interconnections allows for the exploration and analysis of all aspects of economies and societies, informed by contemporary concerns.

The School includes over 100 academic and research staff and a large community of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Our staff profile is multi-disciplinary across the key social sciences, with a strong international profile. Our research is arranged around themes that demonstrate our interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations. School staff have expertise in a range of innovative methodological and theoretical approaches, and this provides an excellent environment for learning and research in each of our subject areas, which include broad fields such as politics and sociology, and major centres of research in economic and social history, crime and criminal justice, the study of central and eastern Europe, and urban big data, urban planning and real estate. Academic staff engage extensively with public and private sector partners in research dissemination and knowledge exchange to advance understanding of social sciences, and we are proud of our record of impacting upon public debate, social and economic policy development and practice based innovations.

In REF 2014, over 80% of the School’s research performance was assessed in the two top categories of 4* world-leading or 3* internationally excellent .