The Working Lives Research Institute is a centre for research and teaching,
based at the London Metropolitan University.
We undertake socially committed academic and applied research
into all aspects of working lives, emphasising equality and social justice,
and working for and in partnership with trade unions.
We emphasize the way changes in work are experienced and shaped by workers and workers’ organisations, recognising the centrality of race, gender, sexuality and disability to their experiences. In acknowledging that work is contested and the subject of political choices, the Institute aims both to further academic understanding and to inform and support the policies of trade unions, social movements and public and private sector organisations.
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The Institute’s links with trade unions, community and voluntary organisations, campaigns and progressive institutions are key to the development of its research programme. Research is undertaken and commissioned both locally and at European level and there are strong relations with European Institutions.
The Institute has 13 full-time staff and 13 part-time staff plus a further 12 internal and external research associates and resources include the TUC Library Collections, the Women’s Library, the Centre for Trade Union studies. It can draw upon a range of disciplines including political economy, sociology, labour history and industrial relations as well as expertise in human resource management, education and training, organisational theory and behaviour, labour markets, environmental protection, employment law and corporate ethics and governance. This means the Institute can capture the dynamic relationships between work, household, family, society and community and how work is shaped by economic and political choices, but in turn influences social identities, divisions and cohesion.
The Institute also offers an excellent environment for advanced studies and research into working lives, employment relations and labour studies, with four taught postgraduate programmes as well as doctoral studentships. It offers short courses and flexible training agreements for partnership organisations.
