International Institute for Cultural Enquiry (IICE)

IICE has recently transitioned into the Societies and Cultures Institute (SCI), with a new website launching in late Autumn 2022.

IICE cultivates interdisciplinary research into culture; working within and beyond the academy with external partners and cultural practitioners to develop world-leading interdisciplinary research for wider public benefit. We facilitate national and international collaboration to tackle pressing global issues, seeking solutions with deep, real cultural resonance.

IICE provides opportunities for researchers to carry out cultural enquiry, with interdisciplinarity as our guiding mode of practice: undertaking collaborative research projects across and beyond departments and disciplines.

Our projects cover matters ranging from climate change to racial justice, from marginalised communities to digital challenges, with a commitment to research excellence, ethics and innovative methodologies.  IICE aims to establish a disruptive space where research questions and methods – the cutting-edge tools of enquiry – are formed, defined and interrogated. 

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“Cultural enquiry is at the centre of IICE’s work, but we are not (too) doctrinaire about what this means. Cultural enquiry is, in its broadest sense, the practice of investigating the behaviours, beliefs, values, symbols and material effects of human animals. A vital element of our practice-based approach is to question the wording and debate the reference. So, for us, cultural enquiry is an open, working definition which will evolve over time in response to the Institute’s footprint activity.

IICE facilitates research projects, seminars and public events with multiple methodologies across intersecting disciplines and dynamic, forward-thinking approaches.

Our research may be curiosity-driven, or just as likely driven by an urgent global issue. Sometimes questions can only be answered with large-scale collaborative teams of academics and practitioners, whereas, for others, a researcher just needs a space to think, write and test their ideas.  It is these mixed research methods that IICE promotes – have a look at our schemes, activities and events on this site.”

– Professor Rob Gleave,  IICE Director

This blog is where you will find exclusive insights from live projects, news on forthcoming and recent events and opportunities, reflections and contributions from our collaborators  and more…