Research in the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE has to be seen within the context of the specialist nature of LSE, its commitment to research excellence across the social sciences, and the efforts made to promote cutting edge research through cross disciplinary interactions and collaborative links between its Departments, Institutes, and Research Centres. Its research strategy has been developed from the view of geography as an integrative discipline whose contribution depends on a strong two-way engagement with other disciplines and from the decision to leverage synergies with other social science disciplines where the School has real concentrations of excellence. As a result, the research agenda is a distinctive one, predicated on applying an interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse social science approach to key geographical and environmental questions; much of the research has a strong applied, policy relevant focus.
The Department's focus is on the social science aspects of geography. This is reflected in its research as it is in its teaching. Research is organised around four clusters of interest: Economic Geography and Regional Science; Cities; Development; and Environmental Economics and Policy. Since 1995 the Department has been re-structured to strengthen its social science base. Changes to implement this new approach have included:
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A strengthening of the staff's research profile by recruiting both established academics with international reputations and young staff with strong research potential. The work of both groups has been gaining increasing recognition and several of the younger academics appointed since 1995 now have world-wide reputations of their own.
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A concentration on specialisations within the applied aspects of socio-economic and environmental geography.
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A building upon the School's policy to promote inter- and multi-disciplinary research by maximising research interaction with other departments and institutes in the School.
Recent academic appointees have been selected from a range of relevant social science disciplines and have been appointed for their ability not only to contribute to Departmental research activities and to high quality postgraduate training in our areas of specialisation; but also to interact on equal terms with specialists in other departments and to participate in interdisciplinary research at the highest international level.