World-class research is one of our founding objectives and continues to be deeply embedded in the daily life of the College.
In 2018, the idea for an interdisciplinary research hub focusing on the science of wellbeing across education, business, and public policy began to take shape. In November of the following year, led by Harris Manchester’s then-Vice-Principal and Tutor in Management, Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, the Wellbeing Research Centre opened at the College. It now has a core research group of more than twenty fellows and associates. Since 2024 the Centre has also published the World Happiness Report whose ranking of countries’ happiness levels attracts the attention of the world’s media each year.
Earlier, in 2015, the College’s then Senior Law Tutor and Fellow, Professor Louise Gullifer, established the Commercial Law Centre. Now led by Professor Kristin van Zwieten, the Centre fosters collaboration between leading legal practitioners, academics and judges in commercial and financial law.
The Library team plays a key role in our research activities, for example by facilitating the annual Summer Research Institute which hosts academics from a range of courses and disciplines, and by supporting the development of a new hub for research into the history, thought and culture of Unitarianism to increase engagement with our significant archives on Dissenting religious traditions.
The above is an extract from "Building On Our Past, Shaping Our Future", a publication celebrating the 30 years since we received our Royal Charter to become a full collegiate member of the University of Oxford. You can order a copy of the book, which features original photography and text, by visiting our donation site.
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