III Research Themes

Improving the Evidence Base for Understanding the Links between Inequalities and Poverty
Partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

This research aims to review the relationship between inequalities of various kinds and poverty. It will investigate areas such as the consequences of living in an unequal society for the lives of those in poverty; how people's prospects of social mobility are affected if parental resources are unequally distributed between families; the links between poverty, inequality and geographical and neighbourhood segregation; how inequality affects risks of poverty for different groups, such as by ethnicity, gender, disability and migration status; and the political and attitudinal effects of inequality for support (or otherwise) for effective collective action against poverty. 

Find out more about the programme here.

Pulling Away? A social analysis of economic ‘elites’ in the UK
Supported by the Sutton Trust

This project will investigate whether British elites are pulling ahead, not just economically but also socially.  Economic research has demonstrated that the richest 1 per cent in terms of income in the UK have increased their relative advantage since the 1980s but we know less about whether their social mobility and self-identities are becoming more exclusive and hence whether there is a more general process of ‘elites pulling away’

Research Team

Dr Sam Friedman 

Dr Katharina Hecht (Researcher)

Professor Mike Savage

Challenging urban decline narratives: enhancing community resilience
Supported by the LSE Institute for Global Affairs and the Rockefeller Foundation

The III has been awarded funding for the project "Challenging urban decline narratives: enhancing community resilience" through the IGA's "Research and Impact Seed Fund", supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. The goal of this project is to develop an innovative synthesis of both political economy and narrative approaches to resilience, and to use this to understand different urban areas in England. 

Read more about the project here.

Since 2015, the III has been delighted to run competitions for LSE-based projects which would benefit from pump-priming support, and lead to larger externally funded projects in the future or other increased research activity in the School. Members of all departments and research centres are eligible to apply for these; we hope to hold a further competition in 2017. Those receiving support will be presenting their findings in future III seminars and/or in our working paper series.

Seven projects were successful and received funding in round one in 2015, for research taking place in the 2015-16 academic year (in some cases extending to 2016-17). Another seven projects received funding in round two (2016-17 academic year), as have seven additional projects in round three (2017-18 academic year).

Read about the different research projects here.

A collaboration with the Agirre Lehendakaria (ALC) at the Basque University

The III is collaborating with the ALC at the Basque University to carry out ethnographic interviews and contribute to the drafting of a report on the Basque case of socio-economic transformation.

Since the 1970s, the region has followed a very different development pattern compared to the rest of Europe, transforming from an impoverished area into a vibrant, successful region by embarking upon policies that privileged cooperative decison-making, community development, and crucially, large scale cooperatives and social enterprises. The motivation of this project is to understand the values, narratives and strategic decisions that have been taken in the Basque area by public and private institutions to build a socio-economic model that presents positive equality indicators combined with a competitive economy.

Research Team

Dr Luna Glucksberg 

Professor Mike Savage

CPEC is a leading international research centre carrying out world-class research in the areas of long-term care (social care), mental health, developmental disabilities, and other health issues - across the life course - to inform and influence policy, practice, and theory globally. 

Visit the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre website.

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The Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) examines different dimensions of social disadvantage and analyses the impact of public policy.

Visit the CASE website.

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The CEP is an interdisciplinary research centre at the LSE Research Laboratory. It was established by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in 1990 and is now one of the leading economic research groups in Europe. 

The CEP studies the determinants of economic performance at the level of the company, the nation and the global economy by focusing on the major links between globalisation, technology and institutions (above all the educational system and the labour market) and their impact on productivity, inequality, employment, stability and wellbeing. 

Visit the CEP website.

The Centre for the Study of Human Rights at LSE is a trans-disciplinary centre of excellence for international academic research, teaching and critical scholarship on human rights.

Visit the Centre for the Study of Human Rights website.

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The Inequality and Poverty Research Programme in the Department of Anthropology is dedicated to understanding the social relations through which some people are perpetually exploited, marginalized and subordinated, and to illuminating people’s creative and political responses to the conditions in which they find themselves.

Visit the Research Unit website.

The Department of Gender Studies (formerly known as the Gender Institute) was established in 1993 to address the major intellectual challenges posed by contemporary changes in gender relations. This remains a central aim of the Department today, which is the largest research and teaching unit of its kind in Europe.

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The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment was established by LSE in 2008 to create a world-leading centre for policy-relevant research and training on climate change and the environment, bringing together international expertise on economics, finance, geography, the environment, international development and political economy.

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Extending LSE's century-old commitment to the understanding of urban society, LSE Cities investigates how complex urban systems are responding to the pressures of growth, change and globalisation, with new infrastructures of design and governance that both complement and threaten social and environmental equity. 

Our mission is to study how people and cities interact in a rapidly urbanising world, focussing on how the design of cities impacts on society, culture and the environment.

View the LSE Cities website.

The Centre's mission is the production and dissemination of high quality research and policy analysis in health and social care.

Visit the LSE Health and Social Care website

The Centre supports the research of faculty from nearly every department across the School whose research is principally focussed on or relevant to the region. Research expertise covers themes on which Latin America and the Caribbean has been at the forefront of the social sciences and humanities such as democratisation, citizenship and human rights, decentralisation and governance, violence, inequality and inclusionary initiatives for women, indigenous groups and youth. 

Visit the Latin America and Caribbean Centre Website.

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A Centre devoted to the study of South Asia will provide a platform from which to launch a coordinated and sustained engagement with the region.

More than 70 LSE academics currently work on South Asia, seeking innovative solutions to the region’s economic, demographic, and development challenges.

The South Asia Centre will lead the School’s long-term engagement with South Asia by facilitating multi-disciplinary approaches and comparative research by LSE academics.

Visit the South Asia Centre Website.

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The LSE's United States Centre is a hub for global expertise, analysis and commentary on America. Our mission is to promote policy-relevant and internationally-oriented scholarship to meet the growing demand for fresh analysis and critical debate on the United States.

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