Research in the School of Geographical Sciences
The School of Geographical Sciences is currently a 6* department having been continuously top ranked by the UK funding council HEFCE’s Research Assessment Exercise. The school's research is focussed on a number of themes which take due cognisance of UK Research Council priority areas, industrial and other stakeholder interests.
Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment (BRIDGE)
The Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment (BRIDGE) group aims to improve the understanding of natural climate and environmental variability and to use this knowledge to predict future changes more accurately and assess its impact on all aspects of human society.
Geographies of Political Economy
The Geographies of Political Economy group applies spatially sensitive theories and methods to the study of economic, social and political phenomena, broadly defined. Specific research interests include the welfare state, urban politics, gender, feminism, globalisation, colonialism and postcolonialism, neoliberalism, development, political ecology and creative industries.
See also Politics and Matter Research Cluster
Glaciology
The Bristol Glaciology Centre leads world-class research into ice sheet processes and subglacial environments. Their aim is to increase our understanding of the present, past and future behaviour of ice sheets and glaciers, and the links between the cryosphere, oceans and atmosphere under changing climatic conditions.
Historical-Cultural Research Group
The Historical-Cultural Geographies Research Group investigates the historical and contemporary geographies of culture. This research is carried out using a range of qualitative approaches and conceptual ideas, with strong emphases on post-structural theory, post colonialism, and the history and sociology of science.
See also Politics and Matter Research Cluster
Hydrology Group
The research interests of the Hydrology Group focus on the modelling of hydrologic and hydraulic problems using advanced numerical methods. They particularly specialize in modelling river flooding, slope geotechnics and subsurface hydrology and predominately use software developed in-house.
Personal Finance Research Centre
The pfrc undertakes wide-ranging research on developments in all areas of personal finance and explores their implications for individuals, households and communities, as well as financial services providers and both central and local government.
Spatial Modelling
The Spatial Modelling group focuses on innovative techniques for the analysis of spatial data and their application to social and economic research problems. Substantively, the group concentrates on: spatial modelling of voting behaviour and electoral systems; measuring residential segregation, analytical political economy and the modelling tools to support it (regional growth dynamics, spatial pricing); spatial modelling of central/local governmental financial allocations and grants; the analysis of social-spatial inequalities in health, spatial diffusion of communicable diseases; and analysis of spatial inequalities in higher education provision and uptake.
Related research
Cabot Institute
The Cabot Institute brings together world-class expertise, developing truly multidisciplinary research programmes to tackle the challenges of uncertain environmental change.
Politics and Matter Research Cluster
The Politics and Matter Research Cluster was formed in early 2012 by an enthusiastic group of Human Geographers at the University of Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences. The group researches an ongoing geographical concern for the shifting relationships between the human and its contemporary environments. By bringing cutting-edge theory, innovative empirics, and creative methodologies together, we seek to complicate constricting and static conceptions of human action and experience. Our work participates in wider interdisciplinary turns toward nonhuman agencies, vital materialisms, hybrid ecologies, machinisms, affect, biopolitics, process ontologies, and assemblage theory.