News
Professor Dame Janet Finch
Janet Finch joins the Morgan Centre in summer 2010 from Keele University, where she has been Vice Chancellor since 1995. Before that she was at Lancaster University, where she was Pro Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Social Relations.
Professor Finch was awarded a CBE in the 1999 New Year's Honours List for services to Social Science. In the same year she was named as one of the Founder Academicians of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. In recognition of her contributions to Social Science, and more generally to higher education, she has been awarded honorary degrees by seven Universities. She was also awarded a DBE, Dame Commander of the British Empire, in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours List, for services to Social Science and to Higher Education.
Social Statistics in Manchester
Thursday 15th January
Launching the Discipline Area of Social Statistics in the School of Social Sciences
Programme of talks throughout the day will include:
- Social Statistics: within the discipline area
- Social Statistics: within the university
- Social Statistics: within the School of Social Sciences
- Social Statistics: a view from Australia
- Social Statistics in the city
NCeSS/BBC Congestion Charge Work
The BBC in Manchester is collaborating with NCeSS to gain the North West view on the impact of the proposed Congestion Charge in Manchester. More details
New home for Social Sciences
The School of Social Sciences at Manchester has moved into its new home - the Arthur Lewis Building.
This new building means staff from Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology and Social Anthropology are together in one building. The Arthur Lewis Building also holds the School of Environment and Development.
More details will follow soon
Social Change: a joint project of Harvard and Manchester
On 1st October 2006 The University of Manchester and Harvard University launched a joint project entitled: "Social Change: a joint project of Harvard and Manchester" (SCHM).
The project will examine the causes and consequences of social change. Its mission is to undertake world-class social science research on comparative studies of social change. An over-arching aim is to develop a new rigorous, empirically-grounded, model of what drives social change, how this relates to well-being of different members of society, and the implications of this for the design of a wide range of policies and institutions.
Key to the project is the importance of social dynamics and value change behind social problems, and the way in which social networks and governments may be linked to help solve collective problems. The gaps in knowledge are between social action and organisations, government policy, and desirable social and political outcomes. The project aims to make progress on identifying the key drivers for more effective social organisation, and for improving the levers public organisations have.
Researchers from the two universities will conduct a series of transatlantic comparative studies on topics such as inequality, immigration, religion, the changing workplace and civic engagement. They will investigate what drives social change, how it relates to the well being of members of society and the implications for policy makers - issues which confront political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.
Since the 1960s massive social, economic and political changes have transformed the social fabric in western democratic societies, through differences in the underlying values of citizens towards each other, and towards political systems, and through changes to the economy via the increasing pace and strength of migration patterns in the UK and US.
Both the UK and the US have long traditions in studying social policy and its effects- from social cohesion, immigration and race to workplace practices, the role of religion and urban affairs. Indeed the citizens of both countries are confronting broadly similar issues, often in interestingly contrasting ways.
The project will be led by Robert Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, who has been appointed to a part-time Visiting Professorship for five years.
Named one of the Guardian's top 100 intellectuals of 2005 and a member of both the American National Academy of Science and the British Academy, Putnam charted the 30-year-decline of social connectivity in the U.S. and articulated the atomised nature of modern life in his book called Bowling Alone. This work has been the subject of heated debate among politicians and commentators - including Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, and George Bush - since it was published in 2000.
Putnam, along with other leading scholars, has identified the links between the globalising forces of economic development and modernisation and changes in the social and political character of societies defined by inequality, diversity and social trust/social capital. Furthermore, whilst modernisation is regarded as causing large scale cultural change, cultural values are also found to have enduring influences on the character of societies. One of the key challenges of social science is to develop our understanding of the linkages between these interconnected processes of economic change, social change and value shift, and how governments are able to shape the impact those processes on society in a positive way.
In such a changing environment, many of the familiar toolkits of governments, which have been used to solve policy problems, no longer work as well as hitherto, mainly because of the scale of the changes, their qualitative difference, and the realisation that many social issues and policy problems have ever more complex causes. There is a paramount need for high quality, internationally comparative, applied social science directed to the critical issues of our time, using the most advanced techniques of social science, but communicated to policy-makers in the clearest and most understandable way
His activities will include a series of collaborative projects, graduate summer school coursework and postgraduate programmes.
Professor Putnam commented: "There is a long and fruitful history of collaboration between British and American scholars in learning across our similarities and differences in order to tackle important social issues. It builds on a foundation of exceptional expertise in both Manchester and Harvard, as well as elsewhere in our two countries.
"We will be able to tap the scholars at both of these universities who have done terrific work on immigration, diversity, social networks, inequality, to name only a few fields. Manchester historically has been heavily involved in bringing the best scholarship to address problems of practical importance to politicians, industrialists, leading citizens, and the working-class, and this project returns Manchester to those roots."
The Project is directed in Manchester by Ed Fieldhouse, Professor of Social and Political Science. Professor Fieldhouse, Executive Director of the new Social Change Project commented: “This is a fantastic opportunity for social sciences at Manchester to really put itself on the map, not only terms of understanding social and political change, but also of what governments can do to shape change in a positive way. Professor Putnam is arguably the world’s leading thinker in this area, and everyone associated with the initiative is looking forward to working with him and with his Harvard colleagues.”
Professor David Farrell, Head of the School of Social Sciences at The University of Manchester said: "I'm delighted that Professor Putnam has agreed to join the University in connection with this new initiative, and we in the School of Social Sciences look forward, with enthusiasm to working with him over the years to come.
“Given its breadth and depth of research interests, the School of Social Sciences is ideally suited to host this initiative. We already host a number of centres of excellence specialising in the exploration of social change and are home to the £3.7 million Economic and Social Research Council Funded Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change."
Listen to his interview with the BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme on October 6. [mp3]
Used with permission of the Today Programme on BBC Radio Four.