About the Faculty

The Faculty of Social Sciences enjoys an outstanding international research reputation. We are particularly proud of our theoretical and applied work in a range of fields including: child welfare and protection, housing studies, problem solving justice, professional education, quantitative longitudinal analysis of large scale social survey data sets, social responses to dementia, teacher agency and the school curriculum and TESOL. Our work is pursued through multi-disciplinary, collaborative, participatory and comparative working, including co-production with organisations and individuals.

Our six core research groups and four related research centres address key issues in society today:

The Faculty also hosts, works in partnership and collaborates with a number of research centres and networks: The Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection (CCWP), the Dementia Services Development Centre (DSDC)ProPEL: Professional Practice, Education and Learning, the Salvation Army Centre for Addiction Services and Research; the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and the Stirling Network for Curriculum Studies.

We have a sustained successful research record and in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, 80% of our research was assessed as internationally excellent or world leading, with the top 23% of our work judged as world leading across two units of assessment, Education and Social Work and Social Policy. Our vision is to continue to excel in our specialist areas of research while developing cutting edge knowledge exchange and public engagement activity which supports the impact of our research.

The Faculty’s Associate Dean for Research is Professor Fiona Copland who is deputised by Dr Peter Matthews.

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