• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • Accessibility options
University of Brighton
  • About us
  • Business and
    employers
  • Alumni and
    supporters
  • For
    students
  • For
    staff
  • Accessibility
    options
Open menu
Home
Home
  • Close
  • Study
    • Courses and subjects
    • Find a course
    • A-Z course list
    • Explore our subjects
    • Academic departments
    • Visiting the university
    • Explore online
    • Online events
    • Virtual tours
    • Chat to our students and staff
    • Open days
    • Applicant days
    • Order a prospectus
    • Ask a question
    • Studying here
    • Clearing 2021
    • Accommodation and locations
    • Applying
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate
    • Transferring from another university
    • The Student Contract
    • International students
    • Fees and finance
    • Advice and help
    • Advice for students
    • Advice for parents and carers
    • Advice for schools and teachers
    • Managing your application
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate
  • Research and enterprise
    • Research and enterprise
    • Research and enterprise organisation
    • Brighton Futures – our themes
    • Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs)
    • Research and Enterprise Groups (REGs)
    • Our research database
    • Information for business
    • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP)
    • Postgraduate research degrees
    • PhD research disciplines and programmes
    • PhD funding opportunities and studentships
    • How to apply for your PhD
    • Research environment
    • Investing in research careers
    • Strategic plan
    • Research concordat
    • News, events, publications and films
    • Research and enterprise news
    • Research and enterprise public events
    • Inaugural lectures
    • Research publications and films
    • Academic staff search
  • About us
  • Business and employers
  • Alumni, supporters and giving
  • Current students
  • Staff
  • Accessibility
Search our site
people walking
Research and enterprise
  • Research organisation
  • Postgraduate research degrees
  • News and events
  • Research environment
  • Groups
    • Groups
    • Applied geosciences
    • Built environment
    • Biomaterials and Drug Delivery
    • Brighton and Sussex Medicines Optimisation
    • Chemistry
    • Stress, ageing and disease
    • Ecosystems and environmental management
    • Education
    • Environment and public health
    • Healthcare Practice and Rehabilitation
    • Interdisciplinary Management and Higher Education
    • Management and Employment
    • Mathematics, Statistics and Operations
    • Musculoskeletal
    • Nuclear physics
    • Past human and environment dynamics
    • Paediatrics
    • Product design
    • Sensory neuroscience
    • Social Science Policy
    • Society space and environment
    • Sport and Exercise Science and Medicine
    • Sport, Tourism and Leisure
    • Sustainability and Resilience Engineering
    • Transforming sexuality and gender
    • Values and sustainability
  • Social Science and Policy

Social Science and Policy

These pages hold legacy content of completed research. Our most recent research in the social sciences is now visible in specialist Research and Enterprise Groups (REGs): 

  • Care, Ethics and Participation Research and Enterprise Group
  • Cities and Injustice Research and Enterprise Group
  • Criminology Research and Enterprise Group
  • Society, Space and Environment Research and Enterprise Group

Social scientists are also represented across the University of Brighton's Centres for Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs). For a list of all university research groups and centres, visit the University of Brighton's page on organisational research units.  

The Social Science and Policy research and enterprise group undertakes applied social science research which is both theoretically and methodologically robust and which seeks to engage critically in public debate on a range of emerging and contemporary policies and practice-based issues.

Our research is often interdisciplinary, combining insights from sociology, psychology, social policy, politics, criminology, social work, counselling and psychotherapy. We work with agencies, organisations, groups and individuals, both in wider society and the local community, to ensure that our research has relevance and impact beyond our centre. Our collaboration with the University of Brighton Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP) creates sustainable partnerships that provide enduring benefits.

Research covers three broad and overlapping research areas:

  • Care, health and wellbeing
  • Crime, resistance and security and
  • Cultural identities and social spaces.

Social Science and Policy offers a vibrant research culture for staff and students alike, providing a supportive environment where researcher development is nurtured and new and early career researchers are encouraged.

Flis Henwood

Flis Henwood
Professor of Social Informatics.

Current research highlights

Turkey-project-2

Aesthetics of protest: Visual culture and communications in Turkey

Yvonne-Jewkes-prison-3

Prison architecture, design and technology

Health-services-report-cover-

Brighton Citizens' Health Services Survey

Contributing to contemporary debate

#Hypernormalisation – and why Heathrow plan is proof we exist in a catastrophic fantasyland

Is Pakistan witnessing the fall of Altaf Hussain, the long-distance king of Karachi?

The Olympics can hurt host cities – but there’s a clever way to fix that

Best summer crime fiction, as recommended by a criminologist

I’ve just been verbally abused – tell me again how racism played no part in Brexit

How illegal firearms find their way onto British streets despite tough laws

Police prefer to carry tasers – but would that make anyone safer?

Telecare is more than just technology – it has the power to create care networks for older people

How the refugee crisis is dealing another blow to Europe’s Roma

Carnage imagines a vegan utopia where animals live as equals – could it happen?

Extreme weather just might encourage us to get our act together on global warming

The UK has its economic focus all wrong – why investment-led growth is needed

Trump's climate policy may backfire, as he unwittingly plays an old psychologists' trick

More and more young people are falling into debt – but it's not their fault

Changes to controversial police Mental Health Act powers may only be a sideways step

Individual action won’t achieve 1.5℃ warming – social change is needed, as history shows

Our mission

Our mission is to enable better futures through adopting a critical research approach to concerns, policies and practices relating to care, crime and culture. We achieve this through undertaking research with service providers and users that both advances understanding and helps shape policy and practice developments in these key areas internationally, nationally and locally.

We are particularly focused on community-engaged and participative forms of research that develop knowledge and understanding based in the experience of marginalised and disadvantaged individuals and communities, and on making this new knowledge available to help shape future directions in policy and service provision.

Research impact

Research areas

Research projects

Collaborations

Events

About us

Back to top
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn icon

Contact us

University of Brighton
Mithras House
Lewes Road
Brighton
BN2 4AT

Main switchboard 01273 600900

Course enquiries

Sign up for updates

University contacts

Report a problem with this page

Quick links

  • Courses
  • Open days
  • Order a prospectus
  • Academic departments
  • Academic staff
  • Professional services departments
  • Jobs
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Libraries
  • Term dates
  • Maps
  • Graduation
  • Site information
  • Online shop
  • COVID-19

Information for

  • Current students
  • International students
  • Media/press
  • Careers advisers/teachers
  • Parents/carers
  • Business/employers
  • Alumni/supporters
  • Suppliers
  • Local residents