Our research
Our research is structured around University and Department research centres which focus on research themes and provide additional institutional structures for facilitating research. Most receive substantial external research funding and work across disciplinary boundaries.
Established in 2008, the Centre for Elections, Media & Participation at the University of Exeter provides many opportunities for teaching and research across core areas in comparative politics such as the study of electoral behaviour, media studies, institutional analysis, political parties and civil society research.
The Centre for European Studies (CES) is an interdisciplinary research centre, with members in politics, sociology, history, and law. Their work covers a wide range of topics, spanning from the EU political system, its actors and institutions, policies, and governance processes, over comparative studies of European states and discourses, policies and politics in specific European states, to analysing Brexit, its impact on the EU and the UK, as well as the impact leaving the EU has on the UK on different levels.
The Centre for Advanced International Studies (CAIS) has developed one of the UK’s leading International Relations programmes in one of Europe’s leading Politics departments and we offer internationally recognised, research led teaching and supervision in areas of global importance including international security, IR theories, foreign policy, conflict analysis, globalisation and resistance.
Exeter has one of the largest groups of political theorists in the UK and a long-standing reputation in the history of political ideas. But since its establishment, the Centre for Political Thought has greatly expanded its areas of research and expertise in political theory. Its distinctive characters are the diversity of approaches and the promotion of intellectual dialogue between different areas of political theory as well as between disciplines and cultures.
Members of the PPGG have expertise across a wide range of public policy theories, issues and methodologies.
The Strategy and Security Institute is an interdisciplinary research centre addressing the strategic deficit of a world beset by instability and insecurity. The Institute carries out research, consultancy and teaching in the field of global security and strategy. Work has a particular focus on how individuals and organisations deal with conflict, unrest, and crisis under intense pressure. We have a critical mass of expertise within the University and work alongside a cohort of strategic partners from other organisations.
Building on the University's core disciplines of Sociology, Criminology, Politics, and International Relations, Centre for Computational Social Science brings together a range of activities related to training as well as curriculum development in quantitative methods. The Centre has recruited academics for the delivery of undergraduate courses focused on endowing students with quantitative literacy and applied data analysis skills, so it offers challenging, exciting and career-enhancing programmes.
The Centre for Middle East Politics (C-MEP) is a cross-departmental and multi-disciplinary centre addressing issues in Middle East Politics past and present. Together C-MEP members span most countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as well as a broad range of topics, including – but not limited to - electoral politics, tribalism, gender studies, colonial studies, democratization and security.
The Elections Centre was established by Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher in 1985 and was associated with the University of Plymouth until 2018 and temporarily with Nuffield College, University of Oxford, before coming to Exeter in 2023.