The Department of Social Sciences has long been recognised as an international centre of academic excellence and for our cutting-edge interdisciplinary work. The Department of Social Sciences comprises the disciplines of communication and media studies, criminology and social policy, social psychology and sociology. All of our academic staff is active researchers, working within and across the following disciplinary boundaries – Communication and Media Studies, Criminology, Social Policy, Social Psychology, and Sociology. We provide training in digital culture, media, communications, sociological and anthropological theory, as well as quantitative and qualitative methods. Loughborough is home to world-leading, original and internationally-excellent research in communication, media studies, sociology, and social psychology. We are ranked in the world top 40 for Communication and Media Studies (QS World University Rankings 2017), and are winners of a Queen's Anniversary Prize and home to the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture. Our staff works with a wide range of public and third sector bodies (eg BBC Trust, Metropolitan Police, the Electoral Commission, the College of Mediators, UK Drug Policy Commission, and the Department of Health). Our social policy and criminology research has world-leading impact, particularly in services for children and minimum income standards. Our research centres and research groups host the highest concentration of innovative research in the UK, drive and lead the way, nationally and internationally, in their respective fields of expertise.