Research
Goldsmiths: a close-knit community, a rich academic heritage, a creative powerhouse, a thought-provoking place.
We offer a space for self-discovery, delivering world-leading research and excellent teaching from our single-site campus in the heart of South East London.
Strategy and themes
Goldsmiths’ mission is to stimulate creative, radical and intellectually rigorous thinking and practice.
We attract talented, insightful and diverse researchers and provides a rich environment that nurtures the next generation.
Knowledge creation and exchange – from curiosity-driven research to real-world problem-solving – underpins the intellectual and creative culture of the entire Goldsmiths’ community.
We are committed to building and sustaining our research capacity, addressing challenges that face humanity and laying the foundations for societal, economic and cultural benefit.
Strategy
Goldsmiths’ research strategy has been developed with three core strategic priorities:
- Supporting and enabling research innovation and leadership locally, nationally and internationally
- Facilitating research that crosses and breaks boundaries, leading to novel methodologies, new sites of investigation and ground-breaking insight
- Collaborating with, but also reaching out to, partners, communities and publics in the mutual creation of beneficial, impactful and transformative knowledge
At the heart of our strategy is the vibrancy and inventiveness of our academic research community.
At an institutional level, the work is led by the Pro-Warden for Research, Enterprise and Knowledge Exchange, but it is embedded in, coordinated and shaped through key structures and responsibilities, including Academic Board, Research and Enterprise Committee (REC), Research Ethics and Integrity Sub-Committee, Human Resources and Equalities Committee, External Relations Committee and the Public Engagement Advisory Committee.
We have Academic Leads in Enterprise and Knowledge Exchange who develop that work across Goldsmiths. Our academic departments, each with a Director of Research, construct discipline-specific research strategies, which are reported to REC and understood with regard to institutional priorities. Annual planning rounds with academic departments and central teams provide points of operational and strategic deliberation and change.
Addressing global challenges
We have themes to help group research, support fundamental insight and impact, and align our work with core societal challenges:
- Bodies, Minds, Society – addressing health and wellbeing
- Invention, Creativity and Experience – addressing creative production and immersive technology and experience
- Social and Economic Justice – addressing urban living, inequalities, displacement and migration
- Technologies, Worlds, Politics – addressing digital and environmental futures and human
Achievements include:
- The development of a new field of research on the racialisation of climate change and the ground-breaking work of PGR students in leading workshops and public fora on Critical Ecologies
- The ERC award (€2M) for Professor Henriques on sonic street technologies and establishing the Centre for Sound, Technology and Culture, with Professor Tanaka and colleagues from Computing, Media and Communications and Cultural Studies, and Music
- Professor Clayton’s collaboration with colleagues from the University of London in Paris, on new forms of activism and her associated book on The New Internationalists: Activist Volunteers in the European Refugee Crisis (Goldsmiths Press, 2020)
- ESRC/GCRF Award (£555K) for Dr Philogene Heron (Anthropology) on Caribbean Cyclone Cartography
Centres and Units
Our Research Units were developed to frame emergent or small-scale research clusters housed within academic departments.
Our Research Centres are larger, primarily multidisciplinary, propositions sitting across academic departments.
Centres include the Centre for Feminist Research, the Centre for Queer History and the Decadence Research Centre. Postgraduate research and postdoctoral members of the Centre for Feminist Research exposed internal concerns and established the 1752 Group that campaigns and engages in policy work regarding gender inequalities and violence in the higher education sector.
Centres provide the ground for research leadership. Professor Knowles, a previous Director of the Centre for Urban and Community Research, was appointed as Director for the Cities and Infrastructure Programme (British Academy in 2017) and as Director for the Urban Infrastructures of Well-Being Programme (in 2019; funded by BEIS and delivered through the British Academy).
Centres are important for our international strategy, developing researcher-led collaborations with other research and non-academic partners. Forensic Architecture has partners on the ground in Argentina, Cameroon, Lebanon, Mexico, Pakistan and the USA, among many others. Research centres are enablers of research grant awards, notably from the European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships.
Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment
In September 2023 Goldsmiths joined the growing number of global research organisations who have signed up to the commitments of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), working together to progress real and lasting change in research assessment practices.
By joining CoARA, Goldsmiths has committed to actively reviewing and reforming research assessment practices in order to recognise the diverse outputs, practices and activities that maximise the quality and impact of research.
Read the CoARA Action Plan 2024-2029 (PDF).
Research Excellence Framework
Goldsmiths is recognised as a leading university for research with nearly four-fifths of our outputs considered “world leading” or “internationally excellent”, according to REF 2021.
The official review of research at UK universities rated 79% of research undertaken at Goldsmiths as 4* or 3* – the highest levels possible.
An analysis of REF 2021 data by Times Higher Education places Goldsmiths at 51st in the UK for the quality of our research and just outside the top 10 of London institutions.
For 4* “world leading” research we saw impressive rankings across our departments including:
- Anthropology – 11th
- Art, Design and Visual Cultures – 21st
- Media, Communications and Cultural Studies – 4th
- Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies – 20th
- Sociology – 14th
In its first submission to the REF, the Institute of Management Studies came 63rd in terms of 4* ratings, out of 108 submitting organisations.
Across the College there was an overall increase in the proportion of results considered 4*. REF 2021 also clearly demonstrates how our research impacts society and changes people’s lives.
Professor Frances Corner, Warden of Goldsmiths, University of London said: “Research is central to who we are at Goldsmiths and these results recognise the expertise and commitment of our research community.
“From changing child social work policy to reforming the commercial gambling sector – the work of our researchers is having a direct impact on the lives of people in the UK and beyond.”
Research governance, ethics and integrity
Goldsmiths has structures that ensure the quality and impact of our research and its environment.
Governing committees and boards
Reporting to the Academic Board, the Research and Enterprise Committee (REC) is a key strategic committee responsible for all aspects of research and enterprise, including research training, research ethics and integrity, and knowledge exchange/transfer activities in partnership with external organisations and businesses.
The Research Ethics Sub-Committee and Postgraduate Research Board are responsible for particular aspects of REC’s overall remit and report to it.
Research ethics
The ethical scrutiny of research conducted by academic staff at Goldsmiths is the responsibility of the Research Ethics Sub-Committee (RESC). RESC scrutinises applications for ethical approval in order to ascertain that the research abides by both general and disciplinary principles and standards of research ethics.
Such principles relate to, for example, harm to human participants, independence of researchers, integrity of research, fidelity to verifiable knowledge, consent to research and use of data, and rights to privacy, confidentiality and anonymity.
Academic researchers have ethical obligations to the people, species and materials they study, to the stakeholders with whom they work, and to the environment within which the research is situated. Such obligations are not only based in the ‘here and now’ but are also oriented to the possibility of future knowledge production by others.
All research projects – that are concerned with living (or recently deceased) beings or with data and materials derived from such beings or that might unduly affect the environment and hence change the lives of beings within that environment – require ethical approval.
Ethical approval applications related to research projects led by undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students are managed by relevant academic departments. Oversight is provided by RESC.
Research integrity
Goldsmiths is a signatory to the Universities UK Concordat to Support Research Integrity and has adopted the UK Research and Integrity Office’s Code of Practice for Research as its institutional Code of Practice on Research Ethics and Integrity.
The Chair of Goldsmiths Research Ethics Sub-Committee (RESC), currently Dr Panagiotis Pentaris Panagiotis.Pentaris(@gold.ac.uk), acts as first point of contact for anyone wanting more information on matters of research integrity and as a confidential liaison for whistle-blowers or anyone else wishing to raise concerns about research integrity.
The formal procedures for dealing with allegations related to research integrity are set out in Goldsmiths Research Misconduct Procedure (PDF) and Goldsmiths Research Misconduct Flowchart (PDF)
Knowledge Exchange
Knowledge Exchange (KE) is about sharing Goldsmiths’ research and expertise with the wider world.
KE activity can take many forms, and generally can be categorised as:
- Research partnerships
- Working with business
- Working with the public and third sector
- Skills, enterprise and entrepreneurship
- Local growth and regeneration
- Intellectual Property (IP) and commercialisation
- Public and community engagement
Knowledge Exchange at Goldsmiths
Goldsmiths’ approach to KE reflects the creative, radical and intellectually rigorous nature of our research. As an arts, humanities and social sciences university we aim to address the challenges that face society and lay the foundations for societal, economic and cultural benefit.
From cutting-edge research collaborations and our portfolio of short courses to support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and access to our specialist facilities, Goldsmiths prides itself on two-way collaborations with partners across the Private, Public and Third sectors and our local community; who in turn inform, enhance and enrich our research.
Goldsmiths receives funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) through the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), which is designed to support and develop a broad range of knowledge-based interactions between higher education and the wider world, which result in economic and societal benefit to the UK.
At Goldsmiths, we use our HEIF funding to support KE activity through our Research and Enterprise team, who work with academic and professional services staff across the institution.
KE activity is measured annually by HESA through the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey. HE-BCI data is also used to benchmark higher education institutions via the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF).
Goldsmiths is a signatory to the Knowledge Exchange Concordat (KEC), a series of high-level principles which cover the range of necessary underpinning activities for effective knowledge exchange.
Services for Business
We work with businesses, charities and public sector bodies across London, the UK and internationally. We can help you support and grow by sharing knowledge and expertise.
Goldsmiths’ broad and varied academic specialisms has seen us collaborate with all kinds of organisations in a variety of innovative and impactful ways.
From supporting local businesses and delivering public sector projects to partnering with some of the world’s largest companies and renowned charities, our work has applied research expertise to educate, evaluate, investigate, problem solve, and more.