Some research themes host research infrastructures, including centres, networks, seminar series, workshops and reading groups. In addition, each of the themes is divided into two sub-themes.
Questions address the dynamics of security and insecurity, the structural patterns of global poverty and disadvantage, and the evolving international balances and imbalances of state power. The Global Insecurities Centre, Centre for East Asian Studies , Critical States of Security Network and International Politics Group generate activities that contribute to this theme.
Topics include the changing patterns of ethnic relations and identification; multiculturalism, religion and liberal democracy; Muslim minorities in the West; migration, return migration and transnational communities; and transnational elite migration. The Centre for Ethnicity and Citizenship and the Migration reading group advance this research agenda.
Studies focus on European governance and the European Union; the relationship between European Union institutions and national policies; European civil society; Europeanization processes, and the transformation of the European public sphere. This research is supported by the activities of the Network for European Political Communications and the European Governance reading group.
Research in this theme advances theory in the disciplines of sociology and politics. Studies address the 'state of the art' issues in culture, the arts and media industries; gender; family and work; poverty and class; and social justice. The Townsend Centre on Poverty, Innocence Project and Gender and Governance Group carry their relevant activities forward in this theme.