Newcastle University is one of the UK’s leading contributors to research in politics. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise Politics at Newcastle scores in the top 12 units in overall output at the RAE 4* category. Our large body of staff conduct internationally recognised research in all major fields of the subject, including:
The German newspaper Die Zeit published details of the 'excellence rankings' of political science departments in Europe in October 2009. The research was conducted by the Centre for Higher Education Development in Germany and the findings were published in its report entitled: ‘Identifying the Best: The CHE Excellence Rankings for Natural Sciences, Economics, Political Science and Psychology in Europe’. Politics at Newcastle was included in the 'Excellence Group' of political science departments in Europe. The Newcastle results were based on Politics exceptional performance in publications and citations.
We work with researchers in many countries and in many cognate subjects, such as geography, sociology, philosophy, law, planning, and environmental sciences. Our staff have won many major research awards and research fellowships and we are the home of three leading academic journals. Our conferences and research seminar series attract the most distinguished international scholars in the discipline.
Postgraduate studies are central to our research endeavour: at any one time, our graduate students number around 100, about half of whom are working for research degrees. Since January 2001, more than 50 have gained PhDs and several have won national prizes for their theses.
Our research expertise and activity centres on three overlapping clusters: