• School research vision
• Research themes
• Currently funded projects
• Post-doctoral opportunities
• Information for visiting researchers
• Public engagement and research impact
• Research consultancies
• Working papers

Project websites

• ACCEPT
• BICC
• Bristol-Mekong Project
• EMILIE
• ESRC-DfiD
• EURISLAM
• European social survey
• Moral and market entrepreneurs
• Muslim participation
• PSE 2010
• Tianjin under nine flags

Public engagement and research impact

An objective of the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies is for our research to achieve impact through dissemination activities, and engagement with academic, professional and wider publics. Our primary goal to achieve impact within the academic community is underwritten by our commitment to demonstrating research excellence through publication and making leading contributions to scholarly debates at the highest international level. Research conducted in the School aims to be theoretically informed, empirically grounded and politically and socially relevant. This means that research findings, especially from problem-oriented projects, have a high potential for influencing public debates and policies. We see the public engagement and dissemination as an important part of the research process. As a consequence, many researchers from the School make regular contributions in the media, in Britain and internationally, to add to debate and disseminate key findings from their research. In addition, others are invited into policy circles, and into discussions with third sector organisations and NGOs, to provide an input to public policy debates and decisions. Still others take up the role of prominent public intellectuals, drawing from their research expertise, to act as opinion-leaders within public debates.

One important example where research from within the School has crossed over into shaping the understanding of a public problem and changing the law is the Innocence Project led by Dr Michael Naughton. This initiative has produced leading academic publications and transformed legal debates and practices about the criminal justice system, by bringing to light perceived problems in the evidence used to convict prisoners. Dr Naughton's research in the Innocence project has been the subject of several television documentaries and opinion-articles in the leading national press.

Further examples, include

• The regular role of Professor Tariq Modood as a public commentator on Multiculturalism on television, radio and in the press.
• Professor Sarah Childs on gender and political representation in public policy circles.
  

For further information about public engagement and research impact at Bristol please visit the University's Centre for Public Engagement.