What is the Institute for Social Change (ISC)
The Institute for Social Change (ISC) is an interdisciplinary research Institute which examines the causes and consequences of social change (more background). Our mission is to undertake world-class social science research on comparative studies of social change. An over-arching aim is to develop new rigorous, empirically-grounded, models of what drives social change, how this relates to well-being of different members of society, and the implications of this for the design of a wide range of policies and institutions.
The initiative includes the appointment of Professor Putnam to a part-time Visiting Professorship for five years and a major new research collaboration with Harvard University: "Social Change: a joint project of Harvard and Manchester".
In addition the Institute aims to become one of the world's leading centres for training doctoral students in the rigorous social science methodologies needed to analyse processes of social change.
The Institute is based in the Faculty of Humanities and involves staff from Schools across the Faculty. ISC is directed by Professor Ed Fieldhouse (School of Social Sciences).