Life at UCL post-2006, which saw me obtain an internal transfer – in the somewhat enigmatic circumstances that I described in an earlier fragment – from Stan Newman’s ‘fish out of water’, miscellaneous grouping in the Department of Medicine to Graham Hart’s altogether more accommodating Research Department of Infection and Sexual Health, was characterised by three themes. First, I became more productive in a metrically pleasing manner: I wrote more papers than hitherto and fewer books. Second, I profited from Graham’s helpful decision to leave me be, presumably motivated both by a philosophy of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, and by an anticipation that I would retire before too long and he might well be able to negotiate a replacement of his own choosing. And third, I found myself caught up in a bid to rationalise and consolidate sociology’s considerable presence within UCL. Despite this presence, UCL had no Department of Sociology.
This project to raise sociology’s profile within UCL came from above, not below, in fact from the office of the Vice-Provost for Research, David Price. Responding to his bidding, and I imagine because I had already made fledging efforts to research the nature and extent of sociology’s representation in UCL, I was visited by his David’s colleague Henrietta Bruhn. Over the next few years we collated these data, and I was encouraged by David and Henrietta to think in terms of establishing a ‘Virtual Institute of Sociological Studies’. Why not a Virtual Institute of Sociology I asked? Because of internal politics, I was told. Perhaps predictably, it was UCL’s Depart of Anthropology that was most troubled and questioning of this whole initiative.
Meeting followed meeting. I organised and chaired a Town Meeting at UCL to test the waters for the concept of a new Virtual Institute of Sociological Studies. This was well attended and successful. I assumed the role of chair and lead and it was agreed (with the support of David, Henrietta and Graham Hart) that I would be the inaugural Institute Director if the concept and associated bid for funding was accepted.
One of the pleasures of this whole process was the closer relationships I came to enjoy with UCL’s scattered sociologists. I already knew Paul Higgs, Mel Bartley and Fiona Stevenson well; but I now met other sociologists like Brian Balmer from STS and Alena Ledeneva and her colleagues within the UCL’s celebrated School of Soviet and Eastern European Studies (SSEES). I was encouraged by David Price to put together a bid for a Virtual Institute of Sociological Studies under the auspices and guidance of Stephen Smith, Professor of Economics and at the time Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences (2007-13). Stephen was sharp, friendly, supportive and, I felt, cautious. He and David both provided funding for raising sociology’s profile in advance of submitting a bid to senior management. I set up a seminar series incorporating the likes of Tony Giddens and Bob Jessop.
I have a few observations at this point. The first is that is that the instrumental thinking of some colleagues in sociology was fairly transparent. ‘What’s in this initiative for me?’ ‘Might it even work to my disadvantage?’ In fact I was careful. While the future possibility of converting a Virtual Institute of Sociological Studies into a Department of Sociology was broached, nobody at the centre of things was in any way cavalier. In fact we were ‘against’ any notion of removing sociologists from their existing locations by dictat and transferring them to a future neophyte Department of Sociology. We always made this clear. I must add that my closest colleague, Paul Higgs, was 100% loyal throughout to me and to the bid.
A second observation is that, for all the whole-hearted support of David and Stephen and their offices, UCL’s internal politics were predictably less than straightforward. In fact, I was frequently offered contradictory advice, and it was clear that these contradictions reflected the strategic positionings of ‘rival’ senior managers: please one and you offended another. Bread and butter stuff for a sociologist but no easier to navigate for all that. While I had good reason to trust David and Stephen, it was not so easy to trust others, especially in the senior management team. Tensions within this team were disguised when I was present but apparent nonetheless (it can pay to learn interviewing skills). More challenging was contradictory advice. Adviser A: ‘How are you going to bring in revenue in the medium-to-long term?’ ‘Like this.’ Adviser B: ‘You can’t do that, and if you try I’ll block the initiative!’ I am not convinced that the UCL Provost at that time, Malcolm Grant, was ever fully on board, and there were rumours of resistance to sociology’s expansion from on high (one regret in retrospect is that I never pushed for a further private meeting with the Provost).
Third, decision-making up to Provost level, and certainly in the senior management team, had an element of randomness about it, if that isn’t an overly generous interpretation. Our bid undoubtedly suffered from internal wrangling and haggling over ‘priorities’; at one long-awaited meeting of the senior management team time ran out before it our bid could be discussed and decided on.
I queried my own role, wondering out loud if I was failing personally as the lead, but David and Stephen insisted not and counseled patience. So I was patient until time ran out as my retirement loomed. It seemed foolish to me to put myself forward as the lead and the inaugural Director of the UCL’s Virtual Institute of Sociological Studies when my retirement was getting closer and closer. Sadly, although I discretely canvassed for a successor it proved to no avail: too few appropriate candidates were neither eager to put their heads above the parapet nor to risk ‘irritating’ their Heads of Department by diverting their energies.
So the initiative died (if not in David’s mind or imagination, as we shall see later). I include here a copy of the proposal we submitted but which was never decided upon. I regard it as a tribute to UCL’s many outstanding sociologists (and our allies), many of whom I only met through this initiative. Appendix 5 presented a fully costed business plan, but it was amended many times and I have lost the final version.
UCL Grand Challenge Human Wellbeing
Office of the Vice-Provost (Research)
2 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BT
A proposal for a UCL ‘INSTITUTE OF SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES’
Executive Summary
Sociology’s presence in UCL is considerable and influential but largely invisible. Colleagues within UCL and local, national and global communities might alike be forgiven for concluding that the discipline is not represented in UCL. There are a number of important consequences of this lack of visibility:
- The perception at home and overseas of a disciplinary gap or deficit in a leading global university
- Wasted opportunities for research collaborations due to ignorance of actually-existing expertise
- The misperceptions of leading public, private and charitable funding bodies
- A failure of representation for sociology and sociologists
- The isolation or estrangement of postgraduate sociology students and early-career researchers
The Institute would make good these deficiencies and, more positively, act as a springboard for new initiatives. Specifically, the Institute would raise the profile of sociology internally and externally. It would do this not only by familiar devices – like a designated website, a regular seminar programme, topical symposia, special guest lectures, globally marketed short courses – but also by actively promoting the multi- and inter-disciplinary synergy now pivotal for ‘outcome measures’ for leading twenty-first century universities.
The Institute would build sensitively on in-post UCL sociologists’ ongoing research and teaching commitments and aspirations: it would consolidate, complement and develop existing resources of staffing and expertise. It would enhance sociology’s contributions to (1) external research income and (2) postgraduate teaching and training.
As the budget demonstrates, the Institute would require relatively modest but nonetheless significant investment in the current financial climate. While there would be no additional salary costs for the Director, there would for full-time administrative support and for running costs, initially for a two-year period.
The Institute would be answerable to two discrete bodies. An international Advisory Board would oversee sociology’s research and teaching initiatives; and Executive and Management Boards would monitor the return on its intellectual and financial investment.
Introduction
- The sociological contribution
Sociology has become highly salient for attempts to understand, explain and address twenty-first century threats to human wellbeing. It has an active presence in UCL, but has to date punched well below its weight for want of an institutional identity and representation. When multi-disciplinary and increasingly multi-institutional research teams are constructed for funding bids to tackle major local, national and international challenges, this is done largely in ignorance of UCL’s home-based resources in sociology; bids to funding bodies like the ESRC may be weakened as a result. With reference to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, UCL has does not figure in the 39 submissions. Significantly, nor do London-based Imperial, King’s or Queen Mary’s, suggesting it is an opportune time to take the initiative.
- The London/global Context
LSE remains an important focus for sociology in London. Four other colleges based in London (Birkbeck, City, Goldsmiths and East London) were acknowledged in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise. This signals an opportunity for UCL: UCL’s existing staffing, expertise and output are already sufficient for a national and international recognition of excellence. Moreover an Institute of Sociological Studies would hit the ground ‘fit for purpose’. In 2003 Professor Hazel Genn’s ‘UCL Social Science Review’ reported significant sociological scholarship at UCL across a number of Departments:
‘although there is no department of sociology within UCL, sociologists are to be found, among others, in the departments of epidemiology, primary care, Institute of Child Health, School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies (SSEES), psychiatry and behavioural science’ (p.4).
She highlighted clusters of activity around health and within SSEES. Since then sociology has become integral to research and teaching and attracted interest far more widely, as is apparent from responses to a survey conducted by the steering committee responsible for this proposal (see Appendices 1 and 2). Staff have higher individual profiles internally and externally. The Institute would have the potential to become one of London’s leading national and international centres for sociology, and could achieve this standing within a short timeframe.
- The institutional context
The consolidation and profiling of sociology within UCL that the Institute would accomplish is fully in line with UCL’s existing ‘global’ research strategy in general and its ‘strategic aims and imperatives’ in particular (2008). An early email communication with all UCL staff elicited 118 positive responses, evincing strong support for an Institute of Sociological Studies right across UCL. The steering group responsible for this proposal (Appendix 1) subsequently conducted a more formal survey of UCL staff, which yielded more specific data on areas of sociological expertise and interest (Appendix 2).
The Institute would (1) provide a critical institutional mass for the discipline of sociology, and in doing so (2) strengthen its engagement with ‘thematic’ interdisciplinary research. The Institute would fulfil many of the functions of extant discipline-based Departments at UCL.
2.1 Institute: objectives
Elaborating on these overarching aims, the Institute would realize a number of complementary objectives:
- To raise sociology’s profile internally and externally
- To facilitate research collaborations between sociologists and between sociologists and colleagues from other disciplines
- To stimulate intellectual activity across UCL’s Grand Challenges/Research Themes
- To further sharpen UCL’s input into policy formation and public deliberation
- To build on sociology’s contributions to postgraduate and undergraduate teaching programmes
- To provide a supportive resource for staff and postgraduate students in sociology
- To organize events with high internal and external impact
2.2 Institute: research themes
The Institute would respond in its first phase to one of UCL’s five ‘global challenges’: wellbeing. While sociology’s potential exists to contribute to each of the challenges, it is important that its resources are not spread too thinly under the auspices of a new Institute. Its initial focus, therefore, would be on five inter-related themes integral to well-being:
- Integration and changing social orders
- Changing dynamics of inequality
- Rethinking generations and the ‘third age’
- Technology and new modes of ‘connection’
- Interrelations of health and well-being
Each of these (1) builds on UCL’s recognized expertise, (2) is of fundamental importance globally, and (3) is topical and therefore ripe for development and innovation.
(A) Integration and changing social orders
There is a new consensus across political parties in the UK that social integration is a vital component of the ‘health of society’ and crucial for the maintenance of order. As a strong multi-faculty institution UCL is well placed to address actual and potential threats to integration and order, and is already doing so. Sociologists at UCL are engaged in an ad hoc way in research across a number of substantive fields, including crime, culture, urban policy, politics, health and health policy, disability, ageing and information and communication technologies.
Sub-themes:
- Changing patterns of crime
- Culture and the new individualism
- Business enterprises and cultures
- Politics of risk and policy formation
(B) Changing dynamics of inequality
Growing inequality between and within nations is a feature of the world post-1970s. The theories and concepts used to explain this have become highly contested at both individual and social levels, not least concerning social structures like class and state relations. Sociologists within UCL, notably within SSEES and the Medical School, have been significant and internationally recognized contributors to theses debates, and the reach of their research programme is global.
Sub-themes:
- New forms of social stratification
- Changes in political representation and practice
- Inequalities in health and longevity
- Informal networks of power and exchange
- Reconfiguring identity
(C) Rethinking generations and the ‘third age’
The concept of ‘life-course’ has become an important vehicle for research into all aspects of contemporary life. Moreover the division of the life-course into definite and recognizable stages is under question. Childhood is being re-appraised in the light of changing family structures and reforms in the education sector. Similarly, old age can no longer be associated with retirement and rapid decline: the generation of ‘baby-boomers’ is re-writing the script. Pioneering work on the sociology of ageing is based at UCL.
Sub-themes:
- Structure, culture and the life-course
- Childhood, youth and families
- Changing patterns of consumption around ageing
- Beyond the third/fourth age dichotomy
- Rethinking ‘pensioners’ and pensions
(D) New technologies and modes of ‘connection’
UCL is contributing significantly to our understanding of new technologies and of their impact from genetics to global governance. A major theme for research funding bodies concerns the ramifications of new information and communication technologies for modes of connection in the twenty-first century. The longer-term effects of ‘virtual’ systems have become a hot issue across the life-course.
Sub-themes:
- Virtual technologies and ‘connected communities’
- New forms of familiarity and belonging
- Changing processes of public engagement
- New technologies and health interventions
- Introduction of new systems in organizations
(E) Interrelations of health and wellbeing
The current emphasis on funding large multidisciplinary research teams is reliant on consensual and effective ways of working. Sociologists are part of such teams throughout UCL, conspicuously in studying aspects of health. Theoretical and conceptual research is also enhancing our understanding of the interface between health and wellbeing and what ‘interdisciplinary’ teamwork involves.
Sub-themes:
- Philosophy of interdisciplinary research on health
- Beyond the ‘biopsychosocial model’ of health
- Sexual health and quality of life
- Constructing indicators of wellbeing
- Chronic illness and self-management
Appendix 3 gives examples of research currently being undertaken by senior sociologists at UCL and linking with these themes.
2.3 Institute: teaching
As Appendix 4 shows, UCL sociologists are already offering or participating in a range of modules at Masters level. The Institute would collate these inputs to create a Masters in ‘Global Sociology’. This would comprise a number of ‘core’ modules in sociological theory and methods and a variety of optional models reflecting ‘pathways’. Drawing on extant expertise, pathways would concentrate in phase one on social change, social stratification, health and social and technological change. Evidence from other ‘local’ institutions, like the LSE, indicates a considerable potential to attract overseas students for a global university like UCL.
As a complement to the establishment of a Masters programme, phase one would prepare a bid for general recognition by national funding bodies for Ph.D training in sociology at UCL. This would lead over time to a predictable growth in Ph.D studentships and applications.
At undergraduate level there is immediate potential for sociology to contribute to UCL’s innovative ‘liberal arts’ programme, and to extend links with Emory University, USA, for which UCL has hosted a six-week summer programme on ‘comparative health care’ for over 20 years.
2.4 Institute: activities
Regular events would be crucial for raising the Institute’s profile and realizing it’s aims and objectives. They would (a) provide a focus and a forum for UCL’s sociologists and postgraduate students, (b) foster closer research and teaching collaborations, (c) reach out to colleagues from other disciplines within UCL, and (d) draw in sociologists and others from outside UCL. Activities would initially fall into the following categories:
- A monthly seminar series
During the first year this series would reflect the full range of
current sociological engagement across UCL and would be the principal avenue for responding to (a)-(d) above.
- Termly meetings for postgraduates
These would provide structured opportunities for postgraduate students to meet, and to organize their own activities under the aegis of the Institute.
- An ESRC seminar series
Plans are being negotiated for a proposed cross-institutional ESRC seminar series on new modes of public engagement with evidence-based policy deliberation.
- Annual lecture
An internationally recognized sociologist would be invited to give
a presentation on an area or topic of widespread interest or concern.
- Day conferences
Day conferences are an important way of advertising sociology’s presence at UCL, and plans are underway for an initial conference on the changing role of the state in Britain.
- Short courses
Short courses would generate revenue, and a first course on ‘social theory and health’ is being planned for 2011 in conjunction with the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology.
- Events
Occasional events, or ‘interventions’ in the public arena, would be organized with a view to generating media interest, typically using locations outside of UCL.
3 Impact
Sociology is active but largely invisible at UCL. An Institute website would be designed to remedy this, drawing on the experience of constructing a website for the ‘Centre for Sociological Theory and Research on Health’ in 2009. The new website would be accessible from UCL’s list of faculties, departments, institutes and centres. It would advertise Institute activities; showcase staff profiles, research and outputs; offer links and resources for staff and students; and act as a recruiting medium for Masters and Ph.D students.
In addition to organizing one-off events to link with outside policy and funding authorities and the media (see above), separate meetings would be arranged with guest speakers representing, for example, international agencies, government, opposition parties, trade unions, policy bodies, ‘think tanks’, non-governmental organizations and campaign groups.
4 Governance
The Institute of Sociological Studies would be dedicated to raising sociology’s profile internally and externally, the outcome to be measured in ‘value-added’ terms via research and teaching revenue, output and impact. This would require dedicated and active leadership. The Institute would be directed during its first – two-year – phase by Graham Scambler, Professor of Medical Sociology based in UCL Medical School. Graham Scambler has an international reputation in more than one field of sociology and was recently elected to the Academy of Social Sciences. He would be responsible for Institute strategy and its effective implementation, in consultation with Institute Executive, Advisory and Management Boards (see below). He would be supported by a full-time administrator.
An Executive Board, chaired by the director and comprising sociologists and colleagues with allied interests drawn from across UCL’s departments, institutes and centres would work to realize the Institutes aims and objectives. This wide-spectrum representation would help guarantee the Institute’s reach to all corners of UCL and staff awareness and participation. The offices of Vice-Provosts David Price and Michael Worton would be represented.
An Advisory Board would consist of sociologists with international reputations (2 from North America, 2 from Europe, and a further 6 from Scandinavia, Australasia, China, India and Africa) who would: (1) afford advice and support for Institute activities, (2) raise the Institute’s profile at home and overseas, and (3) facilitate further sponsorship. The chair would be an internationally recognized sociologist from outside UCL.
A Management Board would scrutinize the Institute’s ‘value’ to UCL, intellectually, symbolically and economically. It would be chaired by the Vice-Provost for research and include the Deans, or their representatives, from UCL Social and Historical Sciences, UCL SSEES, UCL Arts and Humanities and UCL Laws, representation from remaining faculties to be shared. It would be the director’s responsibility to prepare annual reports for the Management Board.
5 Justification of investment costs
5.1 Income
Projected increase in research overheads
The Institute for Sociological Studies would significantly increase opportunities for research synergy and collaboration, especially in relation to multi-disciplinary teams. Initial foci would be the themes listed above and hinging on the Grand Challenge of Wellbeing. The net benefit from overheads from new Institute-driven initiatives would accrue to faculties through departments.
Projected increase in postgraduate students
(a) Masters in Global Sociology
The Institute would during its first phase design, recruit for and commence a Masters in Global Sociology comprising a mix of new and existing core and option modules and delineating a range of pathways reflecting global concerns. This would specifically target overseas students looking to study at global universities like UCL. It is anticipated that this programme will significantly add to the numbers of students presently participating in sociology/sociology-related programmes.
(b) M.Phil/Ph.D
As a result of its growing role and profile in research and the taught Masters, the Institute would attract more M.Phil/Ph.D students from home and overseas.
The Institute would also engender a sense of recognition, belonging and engagement for postgraduate researchers in sociology and allied disciplines.
Professional Development
The Institute’s activities listed above would be a resource for colleagues and students from all faculties, departments, institutes and centres across UCL. Aside from their intellectual return and the generation of research and teaching revenue, these activities would make available, through short courses for example, theoretical, methodological and substantive expertise that is currently under-utilized.
5.2 Costs
Salaries
The post of founding director would be held by Professor Scambler and would not incur an additional cost. A full-time deputy director/administrator would be appointed at Grade 8. The appointee would work with the director to deliver on the Institute’s aims and objectives.
Running costs
(a) Equipment and consumables
Monies for Institute running costs would include equipment and other consumables.
(b) Publicity and communications
There would be a small budget to cover the construction of an Institute website and the internal and external advertising of its programme of events and opportunities for research and learning.
Space
The deputy director/administrator would be found space in the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences.
Appendix 1: Membership of the ‘steering group’ for an Institute of
Sociological Studies
Graham Scambler (Chair)
Infection and Population Health
Biomedical Sciences
Brian Balmer
Science and Technology Studies
Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Steven Bloch
Language and Communication
Life Sciences
Henrriette Bruun
Office of Vice-Provost – Research
Mary Fulbrook
German
Arts and Humanities
Eric Gordy
Social Sciences
SSEES
Paul Higgs
Division of Research Strategy
SLMS
Simcha Jong
Management Science and Innovation
Engineering Sciences
Susan Kerrison
Risk and Regulation
Biomedical Research Unit
Mary Phillips
Office of Vice-Provost – Research
Pascoe Pleasence
Laws
Laws
Jennifer Robinson
Geography
Social and Historical Sciences
HaeRan Shin
Bartlett
Nick Tilley
Security and Crime Science
Engineering Sciences
Appendix 2: Summary of findings from mapping survey, 2010
Sampling period: 12/07/10 – 31/08/10
Sample population: all UCL academic staff
Number of completed responses: 132
Staff who identified by faculty were distributed as follows:
(1) Arts & Humanities/Social & Historical Sciences/SSEES (27)
(2) Laws & Bartlett School of Architecture, Building, Environmental Design & Planning (11)
(3) Mathematical & Physical Sciences/Engineering Sciences (26)
(4) UCL Biomedical Sciences (35)
(5) Life Sciences (14)
There was representation from in excess of 50 Departments, Institutes and Centres within UCL.
The UK was the principal geographical focus of research for two-thirds of staff; the research of the remainder was either focused on other parts of the globe or had no specific geographical orientation.
Staff defined their research interests deploying one or more of 30 categories (including ‘other’). The 10 most populated categories, in rank order, were: health; research methodology; science & technology; social inequality; power, the state and social movements; illness; social theory; environment & risk; gender; and medicine. Allowing some leeway for interpreting the categories, these data helped shape the Institute’s founding research themes. Queries concerning ‘specific’ interests yielded 124 theoretical or substantive areas of interest and commitment.
Over a third of staff included in the survey currently organise teaching modules that ‘include an identifiable sociological theme’. 48 modules were listed (for a summary see Appendix 4).
Appendix 3: Examples of senior sociological scholarship at UCL relating to
the Institute’s five themes
Brian Balmer (Reader in Science Policy Studies, Department of Science and Technology Studies) has conducted research on the control of biological weapons, the role of volunteers in biomedical research, the sociology of science, and policies for biotechnology and genetics. He has collaborated with colleagues in the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at UCL on an ESRC-funded study of the involvement of research participants in steering the development of new technology, and was part of a multi-disciplinary UCL team funded by the ESRC to conduct an historical study of the ‘brain drain’ as a social phenomenon in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s.
Mel Bartley (Professor of Medical Sociology, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health) is Director of the ESRC-funded ‘International Centre for Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health’ (which supports research at UCL, Imperial, the Centre for Census and Survey Research, Manchester University and the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University). Her past research has focused on health inequalities in men and women, and on the relationships between unemployment, social mobility and health. Her current research interests include the effect of lifecourse processes on social and health advantage, disadvantage and resilience, and how these are influenced by economic and social policies.
Graham Hart (Professor of Sexual Health & HIV Research, Research Department of Infection and Population Health) is the new Director of the Division of Population Health at UCL, having served as Head of the Department of Sexual Health & HIV Research since 2008. He is Chair of the ESRC/MRC Studentship and Fellowship Panels, and of the MRC/DfID African Research Leader Scheme. His is involved in research studies of risk behaviour for HIV infection and other STIs, evaluations of complex interventions, social and behavioural dimensions of sexual health, and combined biomedical and behavioural prevention of HIV. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Paul Higgs (Professor of the Sociology of Ageing, Division of Research Strategy) researches ageing and well-being. His approach to this theme is via reflections on the transformation of ageing in contemporary society. This has led to two influential books with collaborator, psychologist Chris Gilleard (‘Cultures of Ageing’ (2000) and ‘Contexts of Ageing’ (2005), with a third volume on the embodiment of ageing in press). He was recently funded for a study of ‘active’ consumption among older people, and is currently running an ESRC-funded seminar series on ‘new ageing populations’ with colleagues from King’s College and Surrey University. He coordinates the ‘Health and Society’ course in UCL Medical School. He is also co-editor of the international journal ‘Social Theory and Health’.
George Kolankiewicz (Professor of Sociology of Central Europe) was appointed to the Chair in Sociology at SSEES in 1999 and was Director of SSEES for five years. His research has long been focused on the changing dynamics of social inequality. Major themes running through his research interests have been those of social citizenship and the impact of the mass migration of Poles to the UK after 2004. He is currently involved in a comprehensive analysis of how Polish sociology since 1989 has faced the challenge of understanding and explaining the advent of a Markey-based, class society. He is a key member of the Management Board of CEEBAS (Centre for East European Language-Based Area Studies), a major programme of collaboration between UCL (as lead university) and the Universities of Oxford, Birmingham.
Alena Ledeneva (Professor of Politics and Society, SSEES) began her research career studying social stratification in the rural, and later industrial, populations of Serbia, and continues to make her own and other sociological studies accessible to Siberian students. Her present projects focus on corruption, the informal economy, economic crime, informal practices in corporate governance, and the role of networks and patron-client relations in Russia and other post-communist societies. Among the latest of her many books is the influential ‘How Russia Really Works’ (2006). She runs the Ph.D research seminar in social sciences for SSEES, and also serves on the Advisory Board of The John Smith Memorial Trust. She is also on the Management Board of CEEBAS
Graham Scambler (Professor of Medical Sociology, Research Department of Infection and Population Health) has researched living with chronic and stigmatising illness, health inequalities and the sex industry, and specialises in the philosophy of social science and critical and social theory. He has published a book on sport (‘Sport and Society: History, Power and Culture’, 2005) and has a second book on sport forthcoming. Current writings are focused on genuinely interdisciplinary study. He has a proposal with the ESRC to examine the bases of interdisciplinary research with colleagues in philosophy and the sociology of education at the Institute of Education. He has been Director of the Centre for Sociological Theory & Research in Health since 2009, and is co-editor of the journal ‘Social Theory and Health’. He is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Appendix 4: Modules currently taught/contributed to by sociologists at UCL
Prevention & disruption of organized crime & terrorism
Creativity & innovation in organizations
Society & the individual
Conversation analysis
Cities & social change
Pillars of planning
Qualitative research methods
Urban politics
Governing divided societies
Planning project: plan making
Space and place
Social statistics
Decision and risk analysis
The patient, family & illness
Family, law & society: current legal issues
Gender, law & the state: current legal issues
Inclusive child development in global contexts
Science & politics of climate change
Nutrition & public health
Architectural history: representations of cities
Planning practices in Europe
Modern historiography
Geography of global poverty & development
The study of advanced industrial society
Sociology of science
Sociology of science & technology
Sociolinguistics
Health inequality in the life course
Principles of sociology
Class citizenship & migration in the wider Europe
Current issues in archaeological theory
Themes, though & theory in world archaeology
Science, governance & the public
Complex buildings
Gendered geographies
Public & private modernities
Historiography
Citizenship & constitutions: global justice, democracy & citizenship
Environmental knowledges
Conservation contexts
Political economy of health: development & welfare
History & sociology of rationality
Communication of scientific ideas
Science, communication & technical citizenship
Research methods and statistics
Theoretical perspectives on material culture and social anthropology
Law and ethics
Cities in Eastern Europe
Nation, identity and power in Central and Eastern Europe
Gender, society and representation
International primary health care
It is only appropriate that I offer an update at this point. I retired in 2013, though with David’s assurance that all was not lost. Nor in the event was it. A turning point was UCL’s ‘absorbing’ of the nearby Institute of Education in December of 2014; the latter became a single faculty school of UCL called the UCL Institute of Education. The IOE was replete with excellent sociologists. On my occasional visits to UCL I sensed a natural anxiety about the UCL takeover on the part IOE staff, but the net effect of this move was an even larger and more impressive sociological presence. UCL now offers 34 Masters degrees in sociology.
A UCL Department of Social Science was subsequently established and is currently under the stewardship of David Voas. It is home to seven major centres:
- Centre for Longituninal Studies
- Centre for Time Use Resaerch
- Cohort and Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources
- Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre
- Quantitative Social Science
- Social Science Research Unit
- Thomas Coram Research Unit
An impressive collection indeed.
Plus UCL is now advertising a neophyte undergraduate degree in sociology. This is of course progress, and David Price is to be warmly thanked and congratulated. But I still occasionally bend his ear. Why? I have two observations.
The first is that UCL still does not have a Department of Sociology! What’s in an name? Quite a lot I think; and the discipline’s concealment under alternative rubrics, which seems to be a growing trend in higher education, threatens the institutional visibility and distinctive contribution to education and research that sociology makes. Much of this ‘concealment’ is accomplished in the name of integration or interdisciplinarity. I suspect I am not alone in: (a) favouring interdisciplinarity in principle, and (b) worrying about both the loss of the ‘cognitive mapping’ that the breakdown into disciplines for long afforded, and fearing for the futures of putative minor disciplines like sociology.
Second, its is clear that UCL’s new Department of Social Sciences is geared to fund-raising, and via a strong quantitative bias. What place is there for qualitative sociology and ethnography? We shall see.
From the comfort of retirement I shall no doubt return to these issues in future fragments. In the meantime, many thanks to those colleagues in UCL, most obviously David Price, whose support for sociology has been so important and was and is much appreciated.