Our research focusses on providing knowledge, insight and innovative technological breakthroughs that promote the role of communities in sustaining and enhancing the quality of life for people globally, through economic, social and cultural benefits, social justice and equality, diplomacy and policy making, security, and the mitigation of the impacts of climate change, conflict and mass migration.
Aligned with the Government’s GCRF challenge areas, our strengths mean we can make a significant impact on the global societal challenges with our challenge-led, interdisciplinary research.
Our work in improving the quality of life in communities
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Research expertise
Our multidisciplinary research into sustainable comunities is underpinned by a number of research groups including:
Accounting and Auditing
Investigating current issues in accounting that include financial reporting, assurance, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and business models in large and small business entities
AI: Social and Digital Innovation
Social, economic and strategic effects of AI and associated technologies. Impact of AI and related technologies on societies, organisations and individuals.
Brunel Education Research and Guidance Hub
Focusing on investigating current issues in higher education including leadership and management, knowledge-behaviour gap, student and staff information literacy, building inclusive pedagogies, coaching and mentoring, community building, E-learning in Accounting Education and curriculum development.
Circular Food Forum
Leads discussions across the “food chain” with the aim to improve resource management, through working with industries and Government to respond to global pressures of growing resource scarcity and food waste.
Culture and Evolution
Evolution and culture are the two most fundamental and powerful influences on human behaviour, and their effects are what we study at the Centre for Culture and Evolution.
Embodiment in Academic and Professional Practice
Development of an enhanced awareness of bodies as sensors of crucial information about ourselves and our reality; Enhancing our performance as human beings, practitioners, researchers and educators.
Entrepreneurship and Sustainability
Our focus is on how individuals, businesses and societies can tap into creative and entrepreneurial flair to develop innovative solutions, in order to not only create economic value, but also solve social and environmental problems.
Equitable Development and Resilience
Centred on development and social justice issues, our group continually reflects upon how individual and collective agency can contribute to meaningful change around climate action and sustainability across Global North and South nations.
Institute of Communities and Society
The Institute focuses on the social, community, and cultural aspects of pressing contemporary issues including migration and movement, social unrest, intersectional inequalities, and institutionalised poverty.
Intelligence and Security Studies
As an inter-disciplinary research centre, established to deal specifically with intelligence issues, policy and institutions, to promote and develop social science and policy-oriented approaches to intelligence.
Interculturality for Diversity and Global Learning
Challenging conventional attitudes and practices and promoting respectful and effective intercultural communication, cross-cultural intelligence, diversity and inclusion, within a world that is increasingly interconnected digitally.
International History
We are a group of historians focusing on the fundamental role that identity plays in the modern age, including gender, religious, ethnic and national identity, and the role of boundaries in demarcating collective identities. Our work is highly relevant to analyses of contemporary conflict, as we contribute a historical perspective to studies of conflict over borders or ethnicity.
International Law
Addressing the fields of public international law, from human rights law to refugee law, the laws of war, international criminal law and dispute resolution.
International Medical Anthropology
Alleviating inequality, suffering from disease and contributing to debates on global health medical anthropology and Disability Studies
International Relations
Our political scientists and historians work on vital international problems like security and intelligence, or violent conflict.
Law, Economics and Finance
The Centre for Law, Economics and Finance aims to advance the wider societal impact of our research by engaging with policymakers, practitioners and other stakeholder.
Magna Carta
We analyse how best to create and maintain just societies that fairly balance both personal freedom and authority, and the rights and responsibilities of individuals and society.
Operations and Information Systems Management
We specialize in responsible and sustainable operation management exploring information systems, operations research, management science, and general management and strategic management knowledge and approaches across public and private industry sectors
Performance, Politics and Violence
From symbolic, mystical and structural violence to genocide and other forms of physical violence, and from far-reaching State and international political control to the micro-politics of everyday life.
Pollution Research and Policy
Predictive approaches in toxicology, including combined chemical exposures and development of new frameworks for non-animal approaches for predicting toxicity; Endocrine disruptor research with an emphasis on mechanisms of disease and test method development; Pollution monitoring, clean-up technologies and chemical analytics.
STEM Education
Research about education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics
Strategy Entrepreneurship and International Business
Our themes of research range from entrepreneurial and internationalisation strategies of small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to inward and outward investment by large enterprises and supra-national governance.
Sustainable Energy Use in Food Chains
Energy demand and GHG emissions reduction in all stages of the food chain; optimal ways the food chain can utilise different energy sources and interact with the energy supply system; resource efficiency through intensification of food processing.
Sustainable Plastics
SPLaSH group combines the strengths of social scientists in the Department of Social and Political Sciences with colleagues working in the area of plastic pollution from Environmental Sciences, Design, Business & Marketing, and Engineering. We are leading experts on behaviour change, public health protection, resource and waste management, governance aspects and sustainability design.
Global, Secure, Connected Communities