Strategic Research Areas (SRAs)

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has been co-leading two Strategic Research Areas of OU Research.

Citizenship and Governance

Governance is about a pattern or ordered rule encompassing policy, law, and practice; it is the process of steering societies through collective actions and the embedding of socio-cultural norms and practices.

Our research is rethinking the changing relationships between states, markets and citizens in the 21st century and the challenges of governance and leadership, such as migration and security.

International Development and Inclusive Innovation

Decades of top-down aid and development policies have failed to address global inequity and grinding poverty for billions of world citizens. Our international development research is pioneering a different approach which we call ‘inclusive innovation’.

We are involving poor and marginalised people in developing their own solutions, and working with them to bring about a fairer and sustainable world.