Our research
Researchers in the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences tackle some of the world’s most complex social, cultural and economic questions, exploring how people behave, influence, interpret and quantify the world around them.
This breadth enables us to deliver an ambitious portfolio of research-led undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, with scholars supported and encouraged to pursue their specific research interest. You can find out more about the full range of research in the humanities and social sciences at the University of Cambridge by visiting our Department and Faculty websites.
As well as advancing knowledge and understanding within specialisms, our researchers consider how cross-disciplinary collaboration can provide solutions to some of today’s biggest global challenges.
Transversal research themes
Building out of six original broad thematic research areas identified through extensive consultation across HSS departments in 2022 as part of our Research Framework, several strategic themes cross-cut research in the School, providing a focus for our interdisciplinary activities:
Humanities, Social Sciences and AI
The rapid rise of development in artificial intelligence (AI) tools has the potential to radically change our societies. From healthcare and education to law, human rights, and even the way we interact with one another, the influence of AI is becoming increasingly pervasive.
Our scholars are perfectly placed to take a critical view of how this technology could affect our lives and what we might want to consider as we seek to take advantage of the opportunities it presents.
Climate and Environmental Sustainability
Our scholars are working across areas such as environmental policy, climate law, fiscal incentives, human rights and indigenous cultures to understand how we can deliver solutions to global warming and biodiversity challenges that are fair, equitable and achievable.
Legacies: Enslavement, Freedom, Futures
Past actions leave a legacy of attitudes, behaviours and societal structures that impact culture, communities and individuals for generations. This theme brings together scholars from all disciplines and those outside of academia who are exploring the intricacies of historical transitions and their lasting societal implications.
Legacies of Enslavement special initiative
Our School is home to the University’s Legacies of Enslavement special initiative which is taking forward the recommendations of a 2022 report into the University’s links to the history of enslavement.
HSS Research Framework
The HSS Research Framework ran from 2022-2025 to enhance opportunities for collaborative research, foster connections between researchers across disciplines, and offer improved avenues of communication.
Through consultation with our academic community, six themes were identified and several projects in each were given funding for start-up activities to initiate cross-discipline collaboration:
- Area studies, global inequality and economic development
- Understanding social, culture and economic transformation
- Conflict, conservation, environmental policy and climate justice
- Technology, knowledge and human development
- Legacies of the past/historical transitions
- Healthy lives
You can find out more about the projects within these themes in our research stories section and on the AHSS Research Funding and Strategic Initiatives website.
In addition to these, Public Policy continues to be a priority for the School's research activity in a way that cross-cuts these themes. The Bennett School of Public Policy is convening this area, developing and encouraging links with researchers across the School and beyond.
The Consortium for the Global South (led by the Centre of African Studies, Centre of Development Studies, Centre of Latin American Studies, the Centre for Gender Studies and Centre of South Asian Studies), in promoting the interdisciplinary study of the Global South within and also outside the University, also cross-cuts the Framework themes and is an important strand to the School's increasing international research portfolio.
Support for research funding and strategic initiatives
Our Research Funding and Strategic Initiatives team supports both the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cambridge. They enable grants, funding, impact, culture, policy, facilitation and assessment, to give strategic lift and support to both disciplinary research and interdisciplinary research within the School and wider.
Visit the AHSS Research Funding and Strategic Initiatives website to find out more.