Institute Plans

The Institute of Health and Society (IHS) will bring together and promote the best of the University's research across the spectrum of health and society. The Institute will be positioned to take forward the University's mission of 'transforming health'. IHS will be among the largest groups of its kind in the UK. It will enable visible critical mass, provide a foundation for fundamental and applied research, create opportunities for new and innovative programmes of work, and national and international collaborations.

The benefits of closer working between the Faculties of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and Medical Sciences are even more relevant today in terms of understanding the relationships between health, health care and their social, economic, environmental and political contexts.

Collaborative and inter-disciplinary research is a long standing feature of the work of many of the members of the Institute. The value of the Institute is that it allows us to synthesise and consolidate what have hitherto been relatively ad hoc connections, building up a much more systematic dialogue between medical, health and social scientists. The Institute aims to:

  • promote research excellence: by
    • drawing together, coordinating and enhancing existing and potential areas of national and international excellence in research on social and environmental aspects of health and health care; and
    • fostering the development of a critical mass of outstanding researchers and research groups working across disciplinary and organisational boundaries.
  • enhance research infrastructure: by
    • providing a shared strategic management structure, organisational infrastructure and physical accommodation for members of the Institute; and
    • providing shared systems for resource management and allocation that maintain the financial viability of research programmes within the Institute, promote new development, and enable excellence.
  • meet the University's strategic objectives, by providing a research environment that promotes excellence and thus attracts increased research and third strand income. At the same time, the Institute will provide an intellectual environment significantly more attractive to high calibre staff, home and international postgraduate students and research collaborators.

The Institute:

  • will conduct multi-disciplinary research on social and environmental aspects of health and health care, nationally and internationally;
  • crosses Faculty and School boundaries, and thus add to the University's profile of excellence in research;
  • include members of international research standing;
  • aim to achieve a highly visible profile nationally and internationally;
  • will be able to 'add value' by bringing research groups and individuals together and increasing opportunities for research conducted with colleagues in other Research Institutes, Research Centres and Schools.