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Sociology Research

 

Many of the research projects in the Department are funded by grants from the major research councils and funding bodies. Current and recent awards held by members of the Department are featured below.

Current Grants and Projects

Read more at: Centre for Landscape Regeneration: Developing community-based visions of landscape regeneration for the benefit of climate, nature, and people.

Centre for Landscape Regeneration: Developing community-based visions of landscape regeneration for the benefit of climate, nature, and people.

Landscape regeneration is essential for addressing biodiversity and climate crises, with an imperative to reverse the decline of ecosystems across the world. However, while there are ambitious global targets in place on nature recovery, the role of people in processes of restoring landscapes is unclear. There have been...


Read more at: Reproductive extractivism: An environmental reproductive justice ethnography in the context of industrial mining in Peru

Reproductive extractivism: An environmental reproductive justice ethnography in the context of industrial mining in Peru

This project explores the effects of industrial mining in the reproductive lives of humans, animals and the land to expand our understanding of reproduction beyond the narrow model of the individual and biological human reproductive cycle that has traditionally constrained this body of scholarship. Amidst the current...


Read more at: Smart Forests: Transforming Environments into Social-Political Technologies

Smart Forests: Transforming Environments into Social-Political Technologies

What are the social-political impacts of smart forests, as digital technologies that are becoming key strategies for addressing environmental change? Forests are crucial to acting on environmental change. They are key contributors to the carbon cycle and biodiversity, as well as air and water quality. At the same time...



Read more at: Black British Voices Project
BBVP Launch event at the House of Commons

Black British Voices Project

This ambitious first-in-kind research project is designed to investigate a significantly neglected area of contemporary British society, namely the shifting valences of Black British identities. The Black British Voices Project is an innovative research collaboration between the Department of Sociology, I-Cubed and The...


Read more at: Trauma Resilience in UK Policing

Trauma Resilience in UK Policing

The Trauma Resilience in UK Policing project explores how to better support the brain's ability to process trauma exposure and maintain resilience in contemporary operational policing. The project is sponsored by The Wates Family Enterprise Trust for 2024-2025 (formerly by Police Care UK, 2016-2024) and works in...


Read more at: RNLI Trauma at Sea Impact Prevention
RNLI Little and Broad Haven Lifeboat Crew respond to callout

RNLI Trauma at Sea Impact Prevention

Our emergency services in the UK share much of the trauma exposure of policing. The Trauma Resilience in UK Policing project is reaching out to the 280 stations of lifeboat crew in the UK to share understanding of the neuropsychology of trauma resilience. We will be working with training teams to cultivate personal...



Read more at: Mental Health Crises and Trauma Resilience in Policing
Surrey Police logo

Mental Health Crises and Trauma Resilience in Policing

Sponsored by the Wates Family Enterprise Trust, the Trauma Resilience in UK Policing project is working with Surrey Police to introduce two new trauma resilience training programmes. One training programme will be for call takers in force control rooms and another for the leadership team. With a focus on cognitive...


Read more at: Thinking Us: developing intersectional antiracist agendas in research

Thinking Us: developing intersectional antiracist agendas in research

Professor Mónica Moreno Figueroa and Professor Manali Desai are leading an exciting interdisciplinary project for Cambridge researchers to explore and incorporate intersectional and anti-racist perspectives into their academic work. Through a series of collaborative workshops, conferences and a Festival of Antiracism...



Recent Grants and Projects

Read more at: ReproSoc

ReproSoc

The Reproductive Sociology Research Group was established in October 2012 to support research and teaching on the social and cultural implications of new reproductive technologies and related forms of social and cultural change. ReproSoc was based within the Department of Sociology and was part of a cluster of reproductive...


Read more at: Shadow expertise: the role of alternative expert advisory groups during the COVID-19 pandemic

Shadow expertise: the role of alternative expert advisory groups during the COVID-19 pandemic

This research project examined a highly topical and theoretically under-defined phenomenon: the emergence of alternative expert advisory groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the new public health threat of COVID-19 became apparent in February-March 2020, governments around the world drew on experts to define the most...


Read more at: The GendV Project: Urban Transformation and Gendered Violence in India and South Africa

The GendV Project: Urban Transformation and Gendered Violence in India and South Africa

The GendV Project aimed to explore the many urban transformations and changing gender relations in New Delhi, India and Johannesburg, South Africa. The project started in January 2020 and was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. It was based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and...



Read more at: GRACE - Grassroots Citizen Science for Global Data Environments Project

GRACE - Grassroots Citizen Science for Global Data Environments Project

This EC-funded research project assessed how grassroots citizen scientists in three world regions (East Asia, Western Europe, Central Africa) mobilize new data devices and technologies to tackle environmental threats; and how formal institutions respond to citizen-driven environmental data practices. With concerned...


Read more at: Building research and policy capacities and capabilities for health and healthcare in conflict zones and humanitarian crises

Building research and policy capacities and capabilities for health and healthcare in conflict zones and humanitarian crises

Two billion people across the world live in areas of conflict and fragility. This has led to the greatest forced migration crisis since the Second World War. The impact of this migration crisis includes socio-economic, political and environmental change in neighbouring frontline countries. There is now specific concern...


Read more at: CancerScreen

CancerScreen

Screening for cancer in the post-genomic era: diagnostic innovation and biomedicalisation in comparative perspective PI: Dr Stuart Hogarth , Lecturer in Sociology of Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge . Overview How do new diagnostic tests find their way into practice? What are the relative roles of...



Read more at: IVF Histories and Cultures Project

IVF Histories and Cultures Project

Sarah Franklin was the principal investigator of this British Academy-funded project, which ran from May 2012 to May 2022. This project explored the history of IVF using archival and interview sources, as well as through analysis of media representations and ethical debate. The aim was to provide a historical sociology of...


Read more at: Latin American Antiracism in a 'Post-Racial' Age

Latin American Antiracism in a 'Post-Racial' Age

Monica Moreno Figueroa was the principal investigator of this ESRC-funded project, which ran from January 2017 to December 2018. This project investigated anti-racist practices and ideologies in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. The project contributed to conceptualising and addressing problems of racism, racial...