Research in Colleges

This is a relatively new focus for the Colleges but a very obvious one and brings with it a role that I have thoroughly enjoyed. The Colleges offer a diverse, multidisciplinary landscape that can complement, enable and facilitate research-related activities within the university. Moreover, research activities within the Colleges are a central driver of the development of our own scholarly communities. Pivotal to this direction of travel is the recruitment and integration of researchers in college communities, at all academic levels participating in a varied menu of research activities. Each college makes its own unique contribution to our research environment. This year the Colleges, through its own research committee, the Colleges Research Forum, has developed a number of key aims and objectives, in line with University strategy, ‘To ensure that colleges play an increasing role in the support of research activities, in the development of the Graduate School and in linking research and education.’

Critical to the health of the scholarly environment is the embedment of research centres and institutes in the Colleges, where interdisciplinary space is guaranteed, and close links with academic departments are supported. Many colleges have engaged in this process, for example the close links between John Snow College and the Wolfson Institute, George Stephenson College and the Business School, the Centre for Medical Humanities in Trevelyan College, Durham Global Security Institute in Hatfield College, the Institute for Hazard and Risk Research in St Aidan’s, the Wesley Study Centre in St John’s and the Institute for Medieval Studies in St Chad’s. Other research clusters such as the Durham Energy Institute have less formal arrangements with several colleges. And more such collaborations are on the way.

Prof Dave Harper

Deputy Head of Colleges (Research and Scholarly Activities)