Top
Skip to Content
LOGO(small) - Queen's University Belfast
  • Our facebook
  • Our twitter
  • Our
  • Our
LOGO(large) - Queen's University Belfast

School of

Social Sciences, Education And Social Work

  • Home
  • Study
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate Taught
    • Postgraduate Research
    • Scholarships
    • Open Learning
  • Employability
    • Our Graduates
  • Research
    • Research Centres and Institutes
    • Research Areas
    • Our Impact
    • Research Environment and Culture
    • Collaborations and Current Projects
    • Recent Publications
    • Visiting Scholars
  • People
    • People A-Z
    • Criminology Staff
    • Education Staff
    • Social Policy Staff
    • Social Work Staff
    • Sociology Staff
    • Emeritus Professors
    • Professional Support Staff
    • Job Opportunities
  • About
    • Location
    • Facilities
    • Diversity and Inclusion
  • News
    • Newsletter
    • Archive 2022
    • Archive 2021
    • Archive 2020
  • Events
    • archive
  • Home
  • Study
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate Taught
    • Postgraduate Research
    • Scholarships
    • Open Learning
  • Employability
    • Our Graduates
  • Research
    • Research Centres and Institutes
    • Research Areas
    • Our Impact
    • Research Environment and Culture
    • Collaborations and Current Projects
    • Recent Publications
    • Visiting Scholars
  • People
    • People A-Z
    • Criminology Staff
    • Education Staff
    • Social Policy Staff
    • Social Work Staff
    • Sociology Staff
    • Emeritus Professors
    • Professional Support Staff
    • Job Opportunities
  • About
    • Location
    • Facilities
    • Diversity and Inclusion
  • News
    • Newsletter
    • Archive 2022
    • Archive 2021
    • Archive 2020
  • Events
    • archive
  • Our facebook
  • Our twitter
  • Our
In This Section
  • Criminology
  • Education
  • Social Policy
  • Social Work
  • Sociology

  • Home
  • School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work
  • Subject Area
  • Social Policy

Social Policy

PHOTO: climate change demonstration placards

Social Policy at Queen’s University Belfast – producing evidence to support democracy, equality and human rights

Social policy at Queen’s University Belfast is concerned with how global challenges shape local communities. Our staff work directly with international, national and local community organisations to make the world a better place. We call this engaged scholarship. Whether we are arguing for the human rights of children with disabilities, conducting surveys on the sexual health of young people, exploring ageism during the pandemic, or gender equality in UK, US and East Asia, we identify how global issues affect ordinary people in Belfast and around the world.

Social policy involves drawing on a range of disciplines such as politics, sociology and economics to tackle social problems.

The global nature of the pandemic has shown the relevance of social policy. A number of rapid response projects in relation to COVID-19 global pandemic, are being led by members of the social policy team, including ‘Women balancing work and care in the time of pandemic: a comparative study of the UK and South Korea,’ media representations of old age during the pandemic and disseminating findings from #CovidUnder19 global study #CovidUnder19: Life Under Coronavirus is an initiative to meaningfully involve children in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our graduates have gone on to work at Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, the NHS and to further study at Queen’s and other leading universities. By focusing in on policy, not just theory, we train our graduates to work with communities to co-create evidence that supports democracy and human rights in Northern Ireland and further afield. We have won student-nominated teaching awards for our work.

Over 88% of research submitted by colleagues from Criminology, Social Policy, Sociology and Social Work to the Social Policy and Social Work Unit of Assessment (UoA) was judged to be World Leading or Internationally Excellent. An endorsement of the quality of our research and its impacts in areas such as the penal system, mental health and trauma; work once again achieved through work undertaken in partnership with the health, social care and criminal justice sectors. We are delighted that Social Work and Social Policy (including Sociology and Criminology) has been ranked at 12th in the UK (Times Higher Education Social Work and Social Policy UoA table).

TOP 200

IN THE WORLD
FOR SOCIAL POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION

(QS WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS BY SUBJECT 2022)
9th

IN THE UK

(TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES GOOD UNIVERSITY GUIDE 2022)
Joint 7th

IN THE UK
FOR RESEARCH INTENSITY FOR SOCIAL POLICY

(COMPLETE UNIVERSITY GUIDE 2022)

What is Social Policy?

Dr Gemma Carney, Queen's University Belfast, asks the question 'What is Social Policy?'

KEY THEMES

  • Gender
  • Disability
  • Ageing and Gerontology
  • Children and Young People
  • Citizenship and Participation
  • Sexual Health and Sexuality

 

KEY RESEARCH PROJECTS

Developing and monitoring social policy
ARK - Northern Ireland’s Social Policy Hub

ARK is a joint initiative of Queen’s University and Ulster University with the primary goal to increase the accessibility and use of academic policy data and research. ARK runs three annual attitude surveys that help to develop and monitor social policy indicators as well as social policy roundtables and the ARK Ageing project.

Visit the ARK Website


two children using laptops
Researching advancing children’s rights
Centre for Children’s Rights

Our Centre for Children’s Rights is an inter-disciplinary collaboration that focusses on rights-based research and the implementation of children’s rights-based policy. The Centre is well-known for its development of a rights-based participatory research model (‘The Lundy model’) and has won international awards for its impactful research engagement on children’s rights.

Visit the Centre for Children's Rights website


Academic Staff

Name Area of Expertise Email Telephone
Dr Bronagh Byrne 

Disability rights and policy; Children's rights and policy; Inclusive education; Rights based and participatory research methods.

 
b.byrne@qub.ac.uk email only
Dr Gemma Carney

Social policy and ageing; Social gerontology; Gender; Cultural gerontology.

 
g.carney@qub.ac.uk +44 (0)28 9097 3749
Dr Elizabeth Martin

Ageing; Domestic violence; Qualitative research methods.

e.a.martin@qub.ac.uk +44 (0)28 9097 3180
Professor Dirk Schubotz

Children and young people; Sexual health and mental health; Sexual and gender identity; Participatory research methods; Biographical narrative research; Good relations and divided societies.

d.schubotz@qub.ac.uk +44 (0)28 9097 3947
Dr Sirin Sung

Comparative perspectives of gender and social policy; Gender; Work and Family; Qualitative research relating to the issue of gender.

 
s.sung@qub.ac.uk +44 (0)28 9097 3469

Research Staff

     
Dr Paula Devine ARK: social gerontology, men's health, public attitudes, quantitative methods, and the dissemination of social science information.   p.devine@qub.ac.uk +44 (0)28 9097 3034
Dr Min-Chen Liu ARK: public attitudes; dissemination of social science information. minchen.liu@qub.ac.uk  
Dr Martina McKnight Children and young people, conflict, gender and research methods.  martina.mcknight@qub.ac.uk +44 (0)28 9097 5970
pD5_Sociology_Social_people_2V_15
STUDY

We offer an array of course choices in social policy at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Criminology and Social Policy | BA
Social Policy and Sociology BA
Social Science Research | MRes
Social Policy PhD


ENGAGEMENT

Social Policy staff have a number of active partnerships with voluntary sector organisations in the UK. We are involved in national and international networks in areas such as social gerontology, disability, children’s and young people’s rights and gender.

Bronagh Byrne has been commissioned by Northern Health and Social Care Trust to examine the emotional well-being of deaf children and young people and by Department for Communities to examine the impact of having two sign language interpreters at the Stormont daily briefings during the pandemic. This will be used to inform the development of the upcoming Sign Language Bill.


Subject Area
  • Subject Area
  • Criminology
  • Education
  • Social Policy
  • Social Work
  • Sociology

Latest News

  • ARK logo
    ARK E-Type Newsletter
    Issue No: 8 - Oct22
    Oct 21, 2022
  • ARK logo
    ARK E-Type Newsletter
    Issue No: 7 - Sept22
    Sep 7, 2022
Queen's University Belfast - Logo (small)
Contact Us

69-71 University Street
Belfast
Northern Ireland
BT7 1HL

GET DIRECTIONS

E-mail: ssesw@qub.ac.uk

Tel:+44 (0)28 9097 5941/3323/5117

Subjects

  • Criminology
  • Education
  • Social Policy
  • Social Work
  • Sociology

Quick Links

  • MyQueen's Student Gateway
  • Study
  • Employability
  • Research
© Queen's University Belfast 2023
Privacy and cookies
Website accessibility
Freedom of information
Modern slavery statement
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Manage cookies