Centre
Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Interaction
Unit(s) of assessment: Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Research theme: Health and Wellbeing
School: School of Social Sciences
Overview
The Centre for Interdisciplinary Reserach on Social Interaction (CROS) aims to gather and house an interdisciplinary grouping of researchers from across NTU interested in the phenomenon of social interaction.
It brings together several established research groups across NTU who study social interaction from their disciplinary perspective (e.g., psychology, economics, computer sciences, animal sciences) and who have existing funding, infrastructure and reputation.
Current topics include:
- social communication (the face, play, conflict, human/animal interaction
- human/computer interfaces, online communication)
- group dynamics (social networks, bullying, communities, social prescribing).
CROS seeks to forge links between diverse disciplinary groups, adding value by breaking down disciplinary boundaries and stimulating creative thinking, sharing expertise, and creating a unique externally facing presence at NTU. This will align with interdisciplinary funding calls and PhD studentships.
The Centre will host annual workshops with external speakers from a diverse range of disciplines (e.g., psychology, biology, computer science, archaeology, philosophy, behavioural economics) with the aim of stimulating debate and challenging disciplinary boundaries. The Centre will consist of SSS researchers exploring evolution and social interaction, groups and identities, and bullying and aggression, as well as researchers from outside SSS including from the Interactive Systems Research Group (School of Science and Technology) and the Animal Health Group (School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences).
The Centre already has existing grants from the European Research Council, AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy. Wenner-Gren Foundation, Leakey Foundation, National Science Foundation and various other charity and third sector funding. Existing infrastructure includes a Social Interaction Lab (Terrace Royal, NTU), a Social and Developmental Psychology Observational Lab (Taylor Building, NTU), the Swebeswebe Primate Fieldsite (South Africa) and the Twycross Zoo primate cognition testing site (pending).
Collaboration
The following research groups are part of this research centre:
- Evolution and Social Interaction
- Bullying and Aggressive Behaviour
- Groups, Identities and Health
