SEDarc

SEDarc offers funding across fourteen disciplines that are organised into five interdisciplinary thematic pathways. These pathways address major social science challenges arising in the Southeast, nationally, and internationally. They also place challenge-led, collaborative, and interdisciplinary thinking at the heart of the student journey and facilitate new relationships with external partners dealing with real-world issues in these domains. You can read more about each pathway below.

 

Prospective candidates will select one of the following thematic pathways when applying.

 

Living Sustainably

 

Living Sustainably is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity and our relationship to the natural world. We face a series of intersecting challenges from energy transition and food security to ensuring that communities around the world have the resources to enable their health, well-being, and even survival.

 

Exemplary challenges include: Climate change; Net Zero, green & circular economies; biodiversity & conservation; ecosystem services; energy, food & resource security; environmental risks, resilience & justice; environmental understanding, education & behaviour change; group norms; managing population movements linked to environmental change; conservation across age and cultures.

 

Healthy, Thriving Communities

 

Healthy Thriving Communities are communities where people of all generations can live healthy and fulfilled lives. Some indicators may include: The diverse population is resilient, resourceful, and adaptable to change; its people and institutions are welcoming and demonstrate mutual care and respect, and where informed decision-making strives for equality, diversity, and inclusion; and where people share, collaborate, and learn.

 

Exemplary challenges include: Health & social care; wellbeing; health inequalities; public policy, services & goods; poverty; equality, diversity & inclusion; place, identity & citizenship; voluntarism; transport & mobility; neighbourhood dynamics; housing & homelessness; families, childhood & youth; ageing; schools, education trajectories, & effective interventions; intergroup interactions; migration.

 

Inclusive Economic Growth

 

Inclusive economic growth ensures fair distribution across society and creates opportunities for all.

 

Exemplary challenges include: Mechanisms, regulatory frameworks & policies that promote inclusive growth; macro-economic (in)stability; taxation & fiscal policies; global, regional, place-based & demographic inequalities; education & skills; lifelong learning; labour market outcomes; fair work & pay gaps; sustainability & legitimacy of growth strategies; economic decision making.

 

Secure, Effective, & Trusted Institutions

 

Ensuring that institutions are secure, effective, and trusted is essential for social and economic progress.

 

Exemplary challenges include: Shifting geopolitical orders & the role of institutions; future international trade frameworks; operation, effect & legitimacy of democratic institutions; effective legal frameworks & systems for ensuring justice; human rights; forced displacement; modern slavery; peacebuilding & conflict resolution; diversifying leadership.

 

Transformative Technologies for Society

 

Digital technology has transformed almost every aspect of our society and world, and its scale and pace continues to grow from AI, the Internet of Things, 5G, drones, and driver-less cars, to the new normal of digital-by-necessity created during the pandemic. Maximising the benefits of technology, whilst avoiding the pitfalls is a major challenge that requires a broad multidisciplinary approach to ensure that our services, systems and processes are safe, reliable and secure, offering accessibility and inclusivity for all.

 

Exemplary challenges include: Societal shaping & outcomes of AI, robotics & VR / immersive media; socio-economic aspects of transformative technologies, including face recognition, computer vision & natural language processing; digital technologies in education (mental) health, and justice; societal engagements with cybersecurity; fintech & livelihood strategies; technological change & future of work; digital divides and digital inclusion.

 

SEDarc funding is available for fourteen social science disciplines. Research topics which do not fall under these areas are not eligible for ESRC funding. Some disciplines are more closely aligned to particular themes than others, but there are no restrictions on which of our disciplines can participate in each theme.

 

Please note that not all disciplines are available in all SEDarc institutions. You can read more about each discipline and their respective institutions below.

 

Anthropology & Development Studies

 

Expertise in this discipline significantly contributes to addressing questions within various thematic pathways, notably Living Sustainably and Healthy Thriving Communities. All three institutions have substantial postgraduate programmes that strongly encourage co-production of research.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Sussex, Reading, Kent)

 

Architecture, Built Environment & Planning 

 

Expertise in this discipline is crucial to addressing doctoral research themes in relation to socio-economic issues of community, the environment, and development. This discipline therefore particularly contributes to challenges relating to Living Sustainably, Healthy Thriving Communities, and Transformative Technologies for Society.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Reading & Kent)

 

Business and Management 

 

With a supervisory capacity of over 400, Business & Management has a substantial presence in SEDarc. Researchers offer expertise in management strategy and practice, responsible leadership, sustainability, and digital innovation which offers contributions to all five thematic pathways.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Kent, Royal Holloway, Reading, Surrey, Sussex)

 

Cyber Security 

 

Due to their active research profiles in cyber security, both Kent and Royal Holloway are Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACEs-CSR), jointly recognised by the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ) and EPSRC. The cyber security research at both institutions has a substantial portion of interdisciplinary research in the ESRC remit, covering disciplines such as Psychology, Politics and International Relations, Business & Economics, Sociology, Law, and Education. The inclusion of these units therefore substantially contributes to Transformative Technologies for Society and Secure, Effective, and Trusted Institutions pathways.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Kent, Royal Holloway)

 

Economics 

 

Economics offers expertise in development, labour, agri-envrionment, macro- and micro-economics, which contributes to SEDarc’s knowledge and training within the Inclusive Economic Growth, Living Sustainably, and Secure, Effective, and Trusted Institutions pathways.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Royal Holloway, Reading (Agri-Food Economics), Surrey, Sussex)

 

Education 

 

Reading and Sussex have postgraduate and initial training programmes with strong expertise in pedagogy, and longstanding partnerships with non-academic stakeholders. Both institutions are committed to open science. Expertise in education enables SEDarc to engage with critical questions on schools, education trajectories, and interventions within the Healthy Thriving Communities pathway, and contribute to research on environmental/behaviour change within the Living Sustainably pathway.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Reading, Sussex)

 

Geography & Environmental Studies 

 

Expertise in this discipline helps to engage our doctoral research themes with questions about environment, nature, space, and place. Research in these areas contributes particularly to training, impact, and partnerships that address core challenges within the Living Sustainably and Healthy Thriving Communities pathways.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Kent, Royal Holloway, Reading, Sussex)

 

Health & Social Care 

 

Expertise in this discipline contributes to critical questions within the Healthy Thriving Communities and Living Sustainably pathways. Kent’s Health and Social Care community includes three externally funded research centres: Personal Social Services Research Unit (the largest social services research unit in the UK and a partner in the NIHR School for Social Care Research), Tizard Centre, and the Centre for Health Services Studies. In addition, the Centre for Child Protection has an international reputation for innovative research on postgraduate and professional child protection training. Kingston has established a ‘pocket of excellence’ through its world-leading and internationally excellent applied health research, with social science underpinnings.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Kent, Kingston)

 

Law & Criminology 

 

Expertise in Law and Criminology enables SEDarc to address important challenges in social and global inequalities, crime, and critical legal theory. It therefore enhances research and training relating to the Secure, Effective and Trusted Institutions, Inclusive Economic Growth, and Healthy Thriving Communities pathways in particular.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Kent, Royal Holloway Institute of Criminology, Sussex)

 

Linguistics 

 

Expertise in Linguistics ensures engagement across SEDarc’s doctoral research themes on how language relates to issues including development, learning, discourse, media, digital technologies, identity, community, and migration. As such, linguistics research contributes to the Healthy Thriving Communities and Transformative Technologies for Society pathways.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Surrey, Sussex, Reading)

 

Politics & International Relations (including Area Studies) 

 

Politics and International Relations (PIR) research across SEDarc is housed in multi-disciplinary centres of excellence covering e.g. Conflict, Cooperation, Interventions, and Security (Kent, Reading, Surrey, Royal Holloway); European Politics (Kent, Surrey, Sussex); Democracy, Elections, and Participation (Reading, Royal Holloway); Corruption (Sussex); New Political Communication (Royal Holloway); and Gender and Sexuality (Royal Holloway). The PIR Departments in SEDarc are housed in faculties or schools with departments such as Law, Economics, and Sociology, and are thus well-placed for interdisciplinary research. PIR expertise provides key contributions on comparative politics, conflict and security, and democracy, therefore contributing to the Healthy Thriving Communities, Inclusive Economic Growth, and Secure, Effective and Trusted Institutions pathways.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Kent, Royal Holloway, Reading, Surrey, Sussex, Sussex (Area Studies)

 

Psychology 

 

Psychology researchers in SEDarc provide world-leading expertise on human behaviour, learning, inclusion, and well-being. These areas are particularly relevant to the Living Sustainably, Healthy Thriving Communities, and Transformative Technologies for Society pathways. In particular, there is a strategic focus on using advanced quantitative methods to understand social decision making and group dynamics (Centre for the Study of Group Processes at Kent), human development (Royal Holloway’s Lifespan Research Network, and Surrey’s Healthy Ageing Research Partnership), and mental health.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Kent, Royal Holloway, Reading, Surrey, Sussex)

 

Social Policy & Work 

 

Across Kent and Sussex, world-leading expertise in Social Policy and Social Work significantly contributes to training and knowledge exchange across numerous pathways, most notably Healthy Thriving Communities, Secure, Effective and Trusted Institutions, and Transformative Technologies for Society.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Kent, Sussex)

 

Sociology 

 

Sociologists at the three institutions have a strong track record of excellence in research across all the interdisciplinary pathways. All three institutions provide infrastructures that offer a route to collaborative supervision and engagement beyond the social sciences.

 

SEDarc Institutions: (Universities of Kent, Surrey, Sussex).