Collaborations and contributions

We are proud of our team's ability to forge innovative interdisciplinary collaborations across the University, with other universities both in the UK and internationally, and via making notable contributions to the work of research councils and other funding organisations.

Collaborations include:

Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR)
Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy (SCPHRP)
Edinburgh Centre for Research Edinburgh Centre for Research on the Experience of Dementia (E-CRED)
Applied Quantitative Methods Network (AQMEN)
Q-Step Edinburgh

Collaborations with other universities and organisations (nationally and internationally)

UKPRP-funded SPECTRUM consortium brings together leading researchers from across (Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Kings College London, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Nottingham, Sheffield, Stirling and UCL) with research users from Public Health England, NHS Scotland and Public Health Wales, as well as leading civil society organisations and two commercial partners.

SIPHER consortium, exploring how considers how people's lived experience of policy issues can inform systems science efforts to tackle health inequalities. Stewart similarly leads a work programme examining how contemporary NHS charities navigate the boundary between voluntary and statutory provision in a Wellcome Trust-funded Collaborative Award with colleagues from Birmingham, Strathclyde and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Our contributions to advancing the University’s strategic ambition to address the great global challenges are driven by the strength of our international research partnerships. Such international collaborations are crucial across all five of our thematic priorities, and our colleagues are involved in research projects in over 50 countries. This includes increased engagement across the Global South, reflecting our active engagement with opportunities arising from GCRF.

The Tobacco Control Capacity Project is working to increase policy-relevant research on tax, illicit trade and governance and to advance development priorities in nine countries in sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia; this is centred on research partnerships both with key universities (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia; Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India; Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana; MRC Unit the Gambia; Aga Khan University, Pakistan; University of Cape Town, South Africa) and with leading health agencies and advocacy organisations (ARK Foundation, Bangladesh; Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth, India; Centre for Tobacco Control in Africa, Uganda; National Tobacco Control Cell, Ministry of Health, Pakistan).

Our collaboration with Sierra Leone’s College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences and with WHO is leading research to accelerate progress on emergency preparedness and universal health coverage in four Ebola-affected countries (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo) under the NIHR Global Health Policy and Systems Research Programme (Hellowell, Sridhar); the ‘Generation Malawi’ study of family, maternal and childhood mental health is conducted in conjunction with the Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit (Pickersgill).

Our work in the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on respiratory health in Asia (RESPIRE, Sridhar) is a collaboration with multiple partners across Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Malaysia. This work is undertaken within the context of an institutional commitment to the development of equitable partnerships, reflected in the TCCP in the development of an additional strand of research across linked projects exploring challenges and tensions involved in promoting equity and local autonomy alongside supporting capacity building.

Our expanding work with partners in the Global South sits alongside established collaborations with leading universities across Europe, north America and Australasia.

Strong collaborations across Europe, driven by funding successes such as…
Collaborations with leading institutions in north America, Australia and New Zealand via research councils overseas, Collin with Australian Research Council Discovery project as part of wider collaborations with School of Regulation and Global Governance at Australian National University and Devaney’s role in an ARC Future Leadership project with University of Melbourne. .
Several Edinburgh staff playing key roles in formal research networks, such as EU framework projects or Networks of Excellence (e.g. Clasen, Clegg, Grek, Koslowski) and Holloway’s role as research lead for Global Nursing Now.

Published contributions

We make extensive contributions across multiple fields through roles as editors and advisors for leading journals and book series. Examples include:

Journal of European Social Policy (Clasen, until 2018) and
Journal of Social Policy (Eichhorn, Naumann, Wiggan from 2019),
Families, Relationships and Societies was co-founded (Cunningham-Burley) and is edited (Koswlowski, Roesch-Marsh) by colleagues across our unit.

Other journals to which we have made senior editorial roles include

Annual International Review of Leave Policies (Koslowski),
Critical Policy Studies (Freeman),
Critical Social Policy (Wiggan),
Emotion, Society and Space (Willis),
European Educational Research (Grek),
Evidence and Policy (Smith)
Journal of European Social Security (Clegg),
New Genetics and Society (Pickersgill),
Nicotine and Tobacco Research (Bauld), and
Tobacco Control (Hill).

Colleagues have served as editorial board members and advisors to many other journals across social policy, social work and cognate fields including

Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work;
British Journal of Social Psychology;
Children & Youth Services Review;
Community Practitioner;
Criminology and Criminal Justice;
Current Sociology;
Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research;
Engaging Science, Technology, & Society;
Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology;
Journal of Family Violence;
Journal of Health & Social Behavior;
Science as Culture; Social Studies of Science;
Sociological Review; and
Sociology of Health and Illness.

Additional significant contributions have been made as editors of special issues of journals including:

Evidence and Policy (Stewart);
on patient safety in the Health Informatics Journal (Cresswell);
on care homes for the Journal of Research in Nursing (Hockley);
on European evidence on gender-based violence for Psychology of Violence (Devaney);
on datafication and accountability in public health for Social Studies of Science (Pickersgill);
on restorative justice for Scottish Justice Matters (Kirkwood),

Sridhar edited both the first collection for Wellcome Open Research and a series of articles for the British Medical Journal on the role of the World Bank in global health.

Colleagues have also served as editors and co-editors of book series including

Palgrave Studies in Science, Knowledge and Policy (Freeman, Grek, Smith);
the Edward Elgar-published series on Globalization and Welfare (Clasen);
Work and Welfare in Europe for Palgrave Macmillan (Clegg);
and two series for Dunedin Academic Press,
- ‘Health and Social Care’ (Clarke) and
- ‘Protecting Children and Young People’ (Devaney)