Dr Julian Hargreaves is Director of Research at the Woolf Institute, a charity based in Cambridge with strong ties to the University. It undertakes research, public engagement, teaching and policy work related to religion and wider society with a focus on Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities.
He is a Research Associate at St Edmund's College, an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and a Visiting Fellow at the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Centre for Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge. He is also an academic adviser for the Department of Sociology's Black British Voices Project, a large-scale survey of attitudes among Black British communities. He is also the Principal Investigator for the Woolf Diversity Study, the largest known study of ethnic, national and religious diversity in the UK.
His research interests include ethnic and religious minorities, Muslim and Jewish communities in the UK, antisemitism, Islamophobia, counter extremism and counter terrorism, policing (including the use of stop and search), issues related to public health (including the impact of Covid-19 on faith communities and the challenges faced by Muslim people in the UK seeking mental health support), and broader social and political issues relating to prejudice, discrimination, diversity, and social cohesion and integration policy.
His work adopts a multidisciplinary, mixed methods approach to social research, with a focus on the more applied domains of sociology and social science. Preferred quantitative methods include large, nationally representative survey work and related statistical techniques. Preferred qualitative methods include focus groups and interviews with a particular emphasis on the use of constructivist grounded theory and the application of social contact theory. Recent work has also included a socio-legal study of the UK Government's definition of "extremism" and research on diversity in the UK that draws on aspects of social psychology. A decade or so in academia has taught him that enlightened research questions are far more interesting than heated debates on research methodologies.
Dr Hargreaves has worked in independent advisory roles for various branches of the UK Government on issues related to policing, counter extremism and counter terrorism, and community cohesion. He holds a PhD in Applied Social Science and an MRes (Distinction) in Criminology both from Lancaster University.
