Professor Toni Erskine
Director of Research

The Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth is one of very few Politics or International Relations departments in the UK that can genuinely claim to be world class. Proof of the department's standing in the field came in the 2008 RAE, which rated Aberystwyth as the leading department of International Relations anywhere in the UK .

The Department of International Politics is world class for several reasons. First, the department is home to an outstandingly talented group of academic staff. These scholars publish their work with the top academic publishers and in the leading scholarly journals, and present their work to the major conferences around the world. Many of the major contributions to understanding the world of politics have been made by academics at Aberystwyth.

Second, the department has a very high quality and extremely successful graduate school. Well over 100 post-graduate students, studying for Masters' degrees or pursuing research for their PhDs, make a major contribution to the intellectual vitality of the department.

Perhaps most importantly of all, academic staff and students participate together in a research culture of extraordinary vibrancy. The department hosts annually the prestigious E.H. Carr Lecture and the David Davies Memorial Institute Lecture, bringing leading academic and political figures to Aberystwyth. Leading scholars from outside Aberystwyth join with the department's own staff and graduate students in the weekly International Politics Research Seminar. A number of specialised Research Groups, Centres and Institutes based within the department also organise their own programmes of seminars, visiting speakers and academic conferences. And no fewer than six academic journals – Contemporary Wales, Critical Studies in Terrorism, Intelligence and National Security, International Relations, Kantian Review, and Minerva – are edited by members of the Department