Research at the University of Leicester

The University of Leicester is considered to be one of the leading research institutions in the UK, having recently been awarded the Times Higher Education University of the Year 2008/09. The University is a member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive Universities, renowned for their pioneering research and high quality teaching. Leicester is also among the top 20 Universities in the UK in terms of research council income.

According to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester, Professor Sir Robert Burgess

Research at the Department of Criminology

Since its inception in 1987, the Department of Criminology (formerly known as the Centre for the Study of Public Order and the Scarman Centre) has prioritised undertaking high quality research and disseminating the findings from this work to as broad an audience as possible. The Department has received over £6 million in research funding from a wide range of bodies including the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development, and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It prides itself on actively seeking to work with practitioners and policy makers throughout the criminal justice system and the private sector in the UK and elsewhere.

In addition, staff within the Department have excellent publication records and many are recognised internationally as leading experts in their fields. We have representatives on the editorial boards of many of the foremost journals in criminology, including: the British Journal of Criminology, Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, Howard Journal of Criminal Justice and Prison Service Journal.

Areas of Interest

The current work of the Department is organised around six overlapping areas of interest:

• Media, Communication and Surveillance
• Cultures, Subcultures and Deviancy
• Communities and Policing
• Penology
• Globalisation and Security
• Gender and Sexuality

For details of staff research interests and areas in which they would be able to supervise doctoral students see individual staff members’ pages.

Research Aims

The principal research aims during the next five years are to continue to develop a programme of high-quality research and published output, and to strengthen the Department’s status as an international centre of excellence. We intend to continue to collaborate on research with a variety of user-communities, in order to promote rich research data and new insights, and also to influence what happens in practice. We welcome applications from good prospective PhD students who will join a thriving postgraduate community within the Department. For more information please visit our research degrees page.

Next step: View a selection of our current projects