We are committed to fundamental research exploring underpinning concepts and problems as well as research that actively and intentionally engages with and seeks to understand the issues of “today and the future”. We seek to tackle key problems and assumptions, creating an agenda for inquiry-driven engagement with emerging global issues.

An increasingly important dimension of our approach to research will be collaborations and partnerships, with fellow researchers and with a wider community of research funders and sponsors. This will build strong research networks and infrastructure with the capacity to address the big issues and generate new insights and knowledge.

This will lead to closer engagement with organizations interested in using our research, in particular employers, governments, charities and NGOs involved in advocacy and socio-cultural as well as economic and political change.

We will continue to develop our research culture, through better support for our research students and early career researchers, and through enhancement of our areas and centers of research excellence. We will nurture talented researchers and bring them through to have fulfilling and successful careers with us.

We will continue to judge the quality of our research by our performance in research assessment exercises, looking to future cycles beyond the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and to other measures of research quality and impact