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Faculty Research Groupings

The Institute for Social Policy and Urban Regeneration (SPUR) is part of LSBU’s mission to serve and work with the broader community and a wide range of stakeholders. It focuses on the building of social capital, working for social inclusion and contributing to sustainable urban regeneration.

Five research groupings are associated with the Institute:

– The Families and Social Capital Research Group: Focuses on the interrelationship between the dynamics of family change and processes of social capital

– Local Economy Policy Unit (LEPU): Focuses on local economic development and urban renewal, a range of consultancy activities, especially related to inner city regeneration, and is the publisher of the journal Local Economy

– International Development Research Group (IDRG): Focuses on environmental management and development planning, public mental health, urbanisation, international and intra-regional migration, urban planning and policy, social capital, and livelihoods and the informal economy

– Crime Reduction and Community Safety Research Unit: Focuses on crime, victimisation, community safety, antisocial behaviour orders, alcohol and violence, guns, gangs and serious wounding, and international aspects of the regulation of prostitution

– Cultural and Creative Industries: Focuses on art consumption, digital media art, how gender is articulated with different media forms and environments, relationships between collective memory, gender and the Holocaust.

Other research groupings are active within the Faculty:

– Research in Psychology: Focuses on child development, anxiety, domestic violence, language development, gender issues, and folk psychology

– Centre for Mathematics Education: Focuses on socio-cultural perspectives, narrative methods, teacher education, classroom interactions, and ICT

– Centre for Cross Curricular Initiatives: Focuses on education for sustainability and a broad range of educational policies

– Research in Arts, Culture and Media: Focuses on cultural memory, cultural venues and practice-based research

– Language and Learning Plus (LLU+): Focuses on consultancy, development, action and evaluation research in the areas of literacy, numeracy, dyslexia, and family learning.