School of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Welcome to the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences

The School of the Humanities and Social Sciences includes a wide range of disciplines with differing methodologies, from highly quantitative analysis of ‘big data’ to ethnography and the analysis of the material culture and thought of past societies. The geographical range is equally broad, with Centres of African, Latin American and South Asian Studies, and specialists within each Department or Faculty. Each institution has its own well developed research profile, but increasingly we are working across disciplinary boundaries within the School and with colleagues in other Schools. The School is participating in university-wide Strategic Research Initiatives such as public health, global food security, energy and conservation which bring the insights of social sciences to bear on some of the major issues facing the world today; Cambridge is one of the world’s leading centres for science, technology and medicine, and the social sciences are now playing an increasingly important role in understanding the social, political and economic contexts. We are fortunate in the provision of research funds from the Philomathia Foundation for the Social Science Research Programme. The School is, in terms of student numbers, the largest of the six Schools in the university.