Department Staff

Department offices are on the fourth floor, north end of the Arts (Burns) Building on Albany Street. Currently the Department has an establishment of fourteen academics along with tutors, researchers and support staff. The lecturing staff comprises graduates of North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.

Staff Research Days

All members of the Political Studies Department are strongly committed to providing courses that are of high quality by international standards. In order to ensure that this aim is achieved, staff need to maintain high standards in their research because the quality of university teaching is dependent upon the quality of the research that informs it. Research informs teaching because it ensures that course design and content is informed by a serious engagement with literature and current factual information, an up-to-date awareness of developments in the field, and thinking that is subject to regular peer review. The research output of the department also makes an important contribution to discussion and debate in the wider community, and helps to ensure that the University fulfills its mission to act as the 'critic and conscience of society'.

However, in order to be productive as researchers, staff members need quality time in which to read, collect and analyse data, and write. For this reason the Department has designated research days in which staff focus exclusively on research rather than teaching or administration. Each staff member has posted a notice on his or her door that indicates clearly which day or days are earmarked for research. We ask students to respect the research days of staff by not 'knocking on the door' and interrupting their work during their research days.