School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Research @ Edinburgh

REF 2014: Best in Scotland, 2nd in the UK
We have been rated the best philosophy department in Scotland, and the 2nd best in the UK, based on volume of world-leading and internationally excellent research. Our research environment was also rated as 100% conducive to producing world-leading or internationally excellent research.

Research Clusters

While we have research expertise in all the main areas of philosophy, we have specific research strengths in the following five areas:

• Ancient philosophy
• Epistemology
• Ethics
• Mind and cognition
• Philosophy of science

These research clusters are the focus for a range of regular research activities, such as conferences, workshops, reading groups, colloquia, and so forth. They also host externally funded research projects. We offer specific research training for postgraduates in these areas, and each cluster will have a large group of doctoral students affiliated to it. We offer dedicated MSc courses in all five areas.

Research Groupings

In addition to our five research clusters, we also have two research groupings:

• Early modern philosophy
• Logic and language

These are areas of research concentration which we believe have the potential to eventually develop into a fully-fledged research cluster. Like a research cluster, a research grouping hosts a range of regular research activities, and will also typically have several doctoral students affiliated to it.

Eidyn Research Centre

In addition to our research clusters and groupings, we also host a research centre:

• Eidyn: The Edinburgh Centre for Epistemology, Normativity and Mind

Eidyn is home to a number of research projects, from externally funded large-scale collaborative projects to small pilot projects. These projects span across nearly all of our research clusters and groupings.

Outreach

Public engagement is a key part of all our research activities. Where relevant, we also seek to use our research to generate specific impacts beyond academia, such as in terms of influencing public policy. Details of our outreach activities.

School Facilities

• School Facilities