As leaders in global fields of research inquiry, including zemiology, social harm, victimisation, prison health, punishment, border regulation and mobility, and the crime-technology nexus, we are linked to many research centres and institutes in Bristol, the UK, and the World.
The School for Policy Studies is a world-renowned centre for the theory, practice and implementation of social and public policy research. Many of the Social Harm and Crime Research Group members have strong existing connections with internal research centres. This includes: the Centre for the Study of Poverty and Social Justice , the Centre for Gender and Violence Research and the Children and Families Research Centre.
Bristol Digital Futures Institute, University of Bristol
Founded in 2019, Bristol Digital Futures Institute (BDFI) is the newest of the University of Bristol’s five research institutes. Digital technologies have changed our world. Global connectivity, smart technology and automated systems are already part of our daily lives. This brings opportunities and challenges. We need to better understand how technologies and people are shaping the future together – or “sociotechnical futures”. Rather than waiting for the future to happen, we need to get ahead of it. This demands a new way of working. BDFI brings together academics from across disciplines with partners from all sectors, from telecoms to charity, finance to film, and charity to government, with an ambition to create new digital technologies for inclusive, prosperous and sustainable societies.
Centre for Sociodigital Futures, University of Bristol
Founded in 2022, the Centre for Sociodigital Futures brings together world-leading interdisciplinary expertise to explore sociodigital futures in the making to support fair and sustainable ways of life. The Centre aims to generate new approaches to fairer and more sustainable societies by exploring sociodigital futures-in-the-making and seeks to understand what impact these possible futures may have upon social and economic inequalities and in relation to the climate crisis. The research programme is structured around five Domains of Sociodigital Practice – caring, consuming, learning, moving, and organizing – and four key fields of digital innovation – AI, Immersive, High-Performance Networks and Robotics – known as the Technical Affordance Projects.
Social Harm Policy Group of the Social Policy Association
With 12 members from six institutions—Bristol, Durham, York, Birmingham, Oxford, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation—the Group advances knowledge of social harm in relation to contemporary societal issues and fosters crosscutting research activities that impact academia and beyond.
Border Criminologies, University of Oxford
Border Criminologies brings together academics, practitioners and those who have experienced border control from around the world. Showcasing original research from a range of perspectives, Border Criminologies hope to better understand the effect of border control and to explore alternatives. Through an emphasis on visual resources and first hand accounts we hope to flesh out our understanding of the lived experience of law and policy and to develop the emerging field of inquiry into border control within criminology.
Working Group on Social Harm, the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control