Research
Research in SSESW combines five core disciplinary areas, in Criminology, Education, Social Policy, Social Work and Sociology, We see our work as being key to bringing about positive social change. Along with our strengths in these core disciplinary areas, we are committed to trans-disciplinary work that can address local and global challenges, bringing together professionals, researchers, and service users to bring about innovation in research agendas and methodologies.
In the last Research Excellence Framework assessment, our research was judged in the top quartile of UK research, and our impact work was judged to be world leading. Our research has influenced policy and practice locally, nationally and globally in many areas including education, criminal justice, the wellbeing of children, social cohesion and mental health.
Our research serves local and global communities, and our ambition is that it aids social transformation to improve lives and outcomes of people.
Karen Winter
in the UK for Social Work and Social Policy
REF 2021/ Times Higher Education Subject Rankingsin the UK for Education
REF 2021/ Times Higher Education Subject Rankingsin the UK for Research Quality for Social Policy
Complete University Guide 2025
ARK is Northern Ireland’s social policy hub. The hub was established in 2000 by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University, its primary goal is to increase the accessibility and use of academic data and research.
DARN is a hub for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners engaged in research on drugs and alcohol. The network acts a an inter-disciplinary forum where findings from areas as diverse as social work, public health, education, economics, sociology, psychology, law and pharmacy can be shared.
The ICCJ promotes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding criminology and criminal justice to improve policy, practice and people's lives.
The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute For Global Peace, Security And Justice strives to create dialogue within which all voices can be heard and to underpin the pursuit of peace through world class research. The Institute connects the perspectives of all those who seek to contribute to conflict transformation and social justice – from the insights of world leading researchers to the experience of practitioners, policy makers, politicians and activists.
Queen's Communities and Place was launched in 2021 by researchers from Queen's and the Market Development Association (MDA) and is a community-academic partnership that aims to find better solutions for tackling disadvantage and improving outcomes for children, young-people and communities.
QUB is driving forward public policy debates in relation police stop and search powers. By examining the history, context and scale of this police practice, such research enhances a deeper understanding of how stop and search is used Northern Ireland’s post-conflict setting. Particularly regarding children and young people, the research is providing new empirical data with national and international significance.
Dr Liam O’Hare leads a collaboration between a team of researchers at QUB and teachers in the Hallam Teaching School Alliance. The team have developed a programme called SMART Spaces for use during GSCE science revision classes, currently being trialled across England in 160 disadvantaged schools with over 14,000 pupils participating.
Latest Publications
Counter-narratives of Authority in Transition: Marginality in the Indian Academy
- Dina Belluigi
- Nandita Dhawan
- Asha Achuthan
- Ulrike M Vieten
Unseen and invisible? Issues of recognition for parents with intellectual disabilities accessing social work and social care services for adults in England
- Beth Tarleton
- Gillian MacIntyre
- Danielle Turney
- Rhian Fawcett
Big sister, dog, and ethnic names: semiotic ideologies of self-naming on Xiaohongshu (RED)
August 2025Consequences of academic selection for post-primary education in the United Kingdom: a systematic literature review
- Ian Cantley
- Rebecca Loader
- Joanne Hughes
Validation of the Motivation to Read Survey
- Pelusa Orellana
- Maria Cockerill
- Allen Thurston
- Carolina Melo Hurtado
- Luz Karime Abadía Alvarado
- Gloria Esperanza Bernal Ramírez
- Alison MacKenzie
- Joanne O'Keeffe
