The Department of Social Policy is the longest established in the UK and has received the highest possible rating in all Research Assessment Exercises carried out in the UK. In the last RAE in 2008 it led the field nationally with 50 per cent of its research recognised as world-leading, and 100 per cent ranked at international level. The Department prides itself in being able to offer teaching based on the highest quality empirical research in the field.

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Dr Ernstina Coast is one of the winners of the 2013 LSE Students' Union Student-Led Teaching Awards

Dr Ernestina Coast|, Senior Lecturer in Population Studies, is one of five winners of the 2013 LSE Students' Union Student-Led Teaching Awards. Duncan McKenna, the Education Officer in the LSE Students' Union, wrote, when announcing the awards, "We asked students to highlight those teachers who had shown exceptional commitment to the teaching of their students, those who had expanded their knowledge beyond the classroom and had a profound effect on their lives and their time at LSE through teaching creatively, inclusively and through creating opportunities for them in the wider world."

LSE leads consortium to advance and strengthen the methodological tools and practices relating to the application and implementation of Health Technology Assessment (HTA)

LSE Health together with 12 other institutional partners have been awarded a
€ 3 million research grant by the European Commission under DG Research's 7th Framework Programme for their project entitled ADVANCE-HTA, commencing in January 2013 for 3 years. LSE Health will act as the principal investigator and coordinator, led by Panos Kanavos, Reader in International Health Policy, bringing together a team of high-level experts with extensive experience in the area of health policy, health economics, health and research methodologies, access to medicines, pharmaceutical policies, medical devices, and Health technology Assessment (HTA).

To view the press release, please click here| (PDF)

PSSRU in partnership to provide NICE Collaborating Centre for Social Care|

PSSRU at LSE and Kent are delighted to be part of a partnership that has been awarded the NICE Collaborating Centre for Social Care (NCCSC). The partnership is led by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), and also involves Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre), Research in Practice (RIP) and Research in Practice for Adults (RIPfA).

Full announcement by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence| (NICE)

Press release by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE)|

'Reading the Riots'| series wins at the British Journalism Awards 2012

Reading the Riots, a joint project led by Professor Tim Newburn| at LSE and Paul Lewis of The Guardian, which aimed to understand the roots and responses to the 2011 riots, has won the Innovation of the year award at the Press Gazette's British Journalism Awards 2012.

News archive

Further events are listed in the Department Diary.

Family Planning: Why Do We Need a London Summit?
Recorded on Tuesday 10 July 2012
Speakers: Dr Ernestina Coast (pictured), Gary Darmstadt, Karl Hofmann, Ashley Judd, Nina Muita
Chair: Dr Sara Seims

Causes and Things
Released on Thursday 28 June 2012
Contributors: Daniel Bear (pictured), Professor Paul Dolan, Dr Elli Gardiner, Dr Vili Lehdonvirta, Dr Luke McDonagh
Features five stories about ideas being investigated by LSE academics and what they may mean for society.

The Big Society Debate: a new agenda for social welfare?
Recorded on Tuesday 19 June 2012
Speakers: Faiza Chaudary, Dr Armine Ishkanian (pictured), Professor David Lewis, Ralph Michell, Professor Simon Szreter
Chair: Professor Nicholas Deakin

More podcasts

The Great Recession and Distribution of Household Income|

Oxford University Press (December 2012)

Authors: Professor Stephen Jenkins|, Andrea Brandolini, John Micklewright and Brian Nolan.

This is the first cross-national study of the impact of the Great Recession on the distribution of household incomes. Looking at real income levels, poverty rates, and income inequality, it focuses on the period 2007-9, but also considers longer-term impacts. Three vital contributions are made. First, the book reviews lessons from the past about the relationships between macroeconomic change and the household income distribution. Second, it considers the experience of 21 rich OECD member countries drawing on a mixture of national accounts, and labour force and household survey data. Third, the book presents case-study evidence for six countries: Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. The book's main policy lesson is that stabilisation of the household income distribution in the face of macroeconomic turbulence is an achievable policy goal, at least in the short-term.

Dr Hakan Seckinelgin| with Professor Chetan Bhatt|, Centre for the Study of Human Rights, LSE, guest edited the special issue of Journal of Civil Society. The issue is entitled: Changing the Debate on European Social Space.| The issue critically examines the broader intellectual apparatuses that govern how Europe's social spaces are understood and the dominant policy infrastructures (including European civil society) that develop from this understanding.

The Multicultural Prison

Oxford University Press (November 2012)

Author: Dr Coretta Phillips|- Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Policy and a member of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology| at the LSE.

This book presents a unique sociological analysis of the daily negotiation of ethnic difference within the closed world of two male prisons. The political economy of racialized incarceration together with penal expansion has seen the disproportionate incarceration of diverse British national, foreign and migrant populations, brought into close proximity within the confines of the prison. The impact of broad social changes - globalised migration, the deepening of North-South economic inequalities, and the assertion of minority groups' claims for social and political recognition and equality - are considered at a time when issues of race, multiculture, and racialization inside the prison have been somewhat neglected. Recognising also the significance of religion, age, masculinity, national and local (postcode) identifications, it considers how multiple identities configure social interactions among prisoners in late modern prisoner society. Using stories from both white and minority ethnic prisoners, it considers challenging issues of discrimination, inequality, entitlement, and preferential treatment from the perspective of diverse groups of prisoners.

The Multicultural Prison will be of interest to students and scholars of criminology, sociology and social policy

More recent publications

The generics paradox revisited: empirical evidence from regulated markets
|Vandoros, Sotiris and Kanavos, Panos| (2013) The generics paradox revisited: empirical evidence from regulated markets. Applied economics, 45 (22). pp. 3230-3239. ISSN 0003-6846

Making working-class parents think more like middle-class parents: choice advisers in English education |
Exley, Sonia| (2012) Making working-class parents think more like middle-class parents: choice advisers in English education. Journal of education policy . ISSN 0268-0939 (In Press)

Intergenerational fertility correlations in contemporary developing countries |Murphy, Michael J.| (2012) Intergenerational fertility correlations in contemporary developing countries. American journal of human biology . ISSN 1042-0533 (In Press)

Marital instability and female labor supply |
Özcan, Berkay| and Breen, Richard (2012) Marital instability and female labor supply. Annual review of sociology, 38 . ISSN 0360-0572 (In Press)

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PhD Research Day 2013