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Appointment of Vice-Principal (Research and Innovation)
  1. Queen Mary University of London
  2. Appointment of Vice-Principal (Research and Innovation)
  3. Our Faculties
  4. Humanities and Social Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

From investigating emerging English dialects in multicultural London to capturing oral testimony from key figures involved in the Irish peace process, research within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary has a lasting impact.

The Faculty offers expertise in a wide range of disciplines from film studies to business management and from English literature to commercial law, the quality of which is independently confirmed by impressive rankings. The Faculty has a proven track record in initiating exciting and innovative interdisciplinary collaborations. A new research centre, Studies of the Home, for example, draws on the academic expertise of staff in Geography, History, English and Psychology, exploring aspects as diverse as interior design, social identity and home-making on a global scale.

The International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) is an interdisciplinary forum for research, reporting, training and debate on state violence and corruption based at Queen Mary University of London. Through both empirical and theoretical enquiry, scholars aim to connect rigorous research with emancipatory activism. State crime is defined as state organisational deviance resulting in human rights violations. Focusing on the role of civil society in defining, exposing and challenging state violence and corruption, the concept of state crime extends beyond domestic and international legal categories. It also includes crimes committed by proto-states or by other powerful entities supported by states.

The Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, launched in November 2008, is the first research centre in the UK dedicated to the history of the emotions. One of its key objectives is to provide a focus for interactions between social and cultural historians of the emotions on the one hand, and historians of science and medicine on the other. It also seeks to contribute both to policy debates and to popular understandings of all aspects of the history of emotions. The activities of the Centre relate to research themes such as: Theoretical categories, the idea of expression, madness, and well-being. Moreover, the themes explore religious practices, regimes and punishment of passions and emotions.

Faculty highlights

  • 6,477 undergraduate students
  • 3,227 postgraduate taught students and 518 postgraduate research students, with 1,130 staff (Academic and Professional Services)
  • Annual turnover of £56m with research grant income of over £7m
  • In REF 2014, Drama and Linguistics were each ranked first in the UK, while English was ranked fifth. History was ranked fourth in the UK for environment, and eighth in the UK for impact. Across the Faculty more than 90 per cent of impact was judged to be of 4* or 3* quality.
  • Together with Kings College London and Imperial College, we are an accredited ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP). The DTP funds over 50 students per year from 2017-18.
  • We are part of the AHRC-funded London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP), which was recently renewed to train a further five annual cohorts of PhD students from October 2019.
  • Our School of Politics and International Relations leads the interdisciplinary Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarship Programme themed “Mobile People: mobility as a way of life”
  • In 2017, we opened the Graduate Centre, a £39m seven storey development housing the School of Economics and Finance, an impressive 200-seat lecture theatre, and numerous seminar rooms.

Visit the Humanities and Social Sciences website

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