Research
Read about our groundbreaking research across our transformational themes.
Explore our transformational research themes
The Sussex School for Progressive Futures is a hub for interdisciplinary research in environmental sustainability, human flourishing and digital and data futures.
It provides a space for conversation, debate and engagement, bringing together researchers from across the University’s research centres and Centres of Excellence and our four Faculties.
Exploration of the intersections and relationships between our transformational themes is core to what we do.
Our work investigates urgent issues such as: the connection between labour rights and energy transitions; the influence of technological change on children; and how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence interact with existing international frameworks in the governance of chemical and biological weapons.
Our research sits within, and at the intersections of, three key themes:
The University has a foundational commitment to academic freedom and freedom of speech. The concept of ‘progressive futures’ is open to multiple interpretations and continued exploration.
Affiliated research centres
Our affiliated research centres are a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary group, covering myriad aspects of research happening across the Sussex campus.
- Browse our affiliated research centres
- Centre for International Education
- Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR)
- Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth (CIRCY)
- Centre for the Study of Corruption
- Centre for Cognitive Science (COGS)
- Sussex Cancer Research Centre
- Sussex Centre for Law and Technology
- Centre for Cultures of Reproduction, Technologies and Health (CORTH)
- Sussex European Institute
- Sussex Africa Centre
- Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies
- Sussex Centre for Quantum Technologies
- Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research
- Centre for Robotics and Sensing Technologies (CROSS-Tech)
- Centre for Dementia Studies
- Centre for Social Work Innovation and Research (CSWIR)
- ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work (Digit)
- Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness
- Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence (Sex Diss)
- Centre for Print Culture
- Data-Intensive Science Centre
- Centre of Infection and Antimicrobial Research
- The Bennett Institute
- Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies
- Centre for Teaching and Learning Research
- Centre for Equitable Global Health Research
- Centre for Modernist Studies
- Sussex AI
- Centre for Rights, Reparations and Anticolonial Justice
- Sussex Addiction Research and Intervention Centre (SARIC)
- Sussex Centre for Gender Studies
- Sussex Drug Discovery Centre
- Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics
Environmental sustainability
We have extensive expertise in environmental sustainability.
Research conducted in the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme, the Science Policy Research Unit and the Sussex Energy Group tackles the politics and governance of the climate crisis, ecological degradation, pollution, nature recovery, and sustainable food futures.
Scientists work with humanities researchers to understand the role of communications, media and the arts in addressing sustainability issues.
Our researchers also collaborate with partners in the Global North and South, including policymakers, activists, citizen scientists and local populations most affected by environmental and climate change.
Human flourishing
Our human flourishing research encompasses human rights and social justice, education and development, health and wellbeing and culture and creativity.
Our Centres of Excellence such as the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, the Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth, the Centre for International Education and the Centre for Equitable Global Health Research are key to this theme, along with the various research groups with which they collaborate.
Digital and data futures
Digital and data futures is closely linked to our other two themes.
Research in this area addresses the history and future of computing and data-driven knowledge production, innovating and applying new technologies and examining their impacts on planet and people.
This work is driven by research centres such as the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, Sussex AI, the Centre for Digital Futures at Work and the Sussex Centre for Quantum Technologies.
Find out how our research is addressing the greatest challenges facing our planet.