Research and research groups
Our work provides a focal point for those interested in the key issues and questions of our time and the operations, structures and social problems of today. The Department is a world-leading centre, both for study and for research, that plays a central role in advancing sociology as a discipline capable of tackling concerns central to contemporary society.
Our work is also intentionally inter-disciplinary in nature and remains well-connected through collaborations to other disciplines including, inter alia, geography, health sciences, politics and social policy. We have also developed strong research links with the humanities and the natural sciences.
All staff are located in one, and sometimes two, of these clusters. The organisation of work in the department is based on funding bases and intellectual styles of work. Some research still takes the form of individual scholarship, some is organised by way of informal communities of interest, and some is delivered via the work of the formal Research Centres/Units.
Research areas
The Department is strategically focused on a number of socially significant (and often overlapping) areas of research enquiry and public commentary concerned with:
- York European Centre for Cultural Exploration
- Gender, sexuality and inequality
- Science, health and technology
- Language and social interaction
- Science and technology
- Urban studies and criminology
Our research strategy
Vision
The Department of Sociology at York aspires to build on its leading position by producing research that is rigorous, original and significant. In keeping with the University of York’s research strategy, the Department will produce scholarly work of the highest quality and of value to society. It will work towards fashioning a distinctive ‘York’ Sociology (or sociologies) and the Department will endeavor to promote its contribution to the discipline as a whole. It seeks to sustain a research environment that has a sound financial base and one that is conducive to all academic staff achieving their personal research goals, while encouraging them to retain a critical and relevant approach to their research.
Objectives
- Secure research income from peer reviewed funders to underpin robust and rigorous research;
- Encourage collegiality and foster an environment conducive to intellectual debate and innovative research;
- Support academic staff to pursue and develop their individual learned careers, support on-going training needs and communicate the expectation that they undertake scholarly work, raise research income, and publish;
- Attract, recruit and retain researchers of the highest quality and ensure that they have every opportunity operate effectively;
- Retain the visibility and profile of ‘York’ sociology nationally and internationally;
- Engage with communities outside the academy (including lay, policymaker and practitioners) and ensure research has impact;
- Extend international collaboration and networks;
- Encourage inter-disciplinary research both within and beyond the University;
- Host international conferences and seminars;
- Sustain a vibrant doctoral programme capable of developing a new generation of researchers who are competent across the central methodological expertise;
- To return an excellent submission for the REF 2014.
Current standing
In the 2008 RAE Sociology at York was ranked joint first in the country (along with Manchester, Essex and Goldsmiths). Sixty percent of its work was graded at either 4* or 3* and its grade point average (GPA) was 2.85.
Our aim is to maintain this position as one of premier departments for research in the UK.