About us
The ICCR is a Health and Social Care, Research and Development Public Health Agency core funded research institute located within Queen’s University Belfast, one of the 20 leading Russell Group research-intensive universities in the United Kingdom. It is embedded within and can draw upon the expertise of the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work where some 80 staff with backgrounds in a range of subjects such as Sociology, Social Work, Social Policy, Criminology, Psychology and Gender Studies, reside. Furthermore, staff from the ICCR have strong links with colleagues in other disciplines within Queen’s University, including education, public health, child health, law, psychology, mathematics and sociology. This is exemplified by our collaboration in supervising PhD students across schools and by our participation in university wide networks such as the Improving Children’s Lives Initiative.
As a research centre in a world class university, we strive to bring the highest standard scholarship and intellectual resources to the real challenges of policy-makers and service-providers, collaborating to ensure that children grow, thrive, and take their place in an ever-changing world. In the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008, researchers in the School achieved world-leading status and international excellence for the high quality and volume of their research work over the past six years. The RAE panel specifically commended the work of five senior research staff from the ICCR.
Knowledge transfer activity is firmly embedded in the work of the ICCR. In keeping with an internationally recognised research unit, the ICCR publishes up to 20 papers each year in academic journals, makes seminar presentations and conference presentations, facilitates training events, makes information available on web pages, and publishes information tailored for end-users such as parents, practitioners, teachers and young people. Teams have been interviewed about their work on radio and television, as well as having findings reported by newspapers such as the Daily Mail, Daily Star, Irish News and Belfast Telegraph. Research has also been publicised in audience specific web forums such as the Lifestart study on parenting, websites such as rollercoaster.ie, families.ie, netmums.com and the National Family Week website.
