Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies

The Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies (PIRES) is a department of Loughborough University.

History

PIRES evolved from the Department of European Studies, which was established in 1972.

In 2001 in the Research Assessment Exercise PIRES was awarded a grade of 5B and in the same year it scored 23/24 in the External Subject Review.

It wasn't until 2003 that the Department took the decision to invest in the study of Politics and International Relations and began to offer undergraduate degrees in International Relations. It was after this that the Department had a change of name and became the Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies.

In 2005 the Department greatly expanded in size and added a further three members of staff (one at professor level, one at senior lecturer level and then the final member at the lecturer level). It added a further three lecturers to its number in 2007.

Future developments

It is expected that as of 2009 PIRES will offer History as an undergraduate subject and will create four new joint Honours courses in History and Politics, History and International Relations, History and Geography and History and English.

tudy

The Department currently offers three undergraduate courses, three Masters courses and provides research possibilities (with the Department being recognised by the ESRC).

Undergraduate

*Politics with a minor
*European Studies
*International Relations

Masters

*European and International Studies
*International Relations
*Research Methods

Languages

PIRES is the center for the University-wide Languages Programme. This programme offers the chance to include French, German or Spanish as part of an undergraduate degree. They can also provide after hours tuition as part of the Extra-curricular Language Programme.

Languages provided for as of 2007 include: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Russian

Mathematics Education Centre

The Schofield Building on campus houses the Mathematics Education Centre. Here students can get support and guidance regarding mathematical skills. In particular the staff have in depth knowledge of statistics and the statistics research based programme SPSS.

Research

The Department of PIRES focusses its research primarily on three main areas: Politics and Public Policy (an area which the University won the Queen's Anniversary Prize for in 2005), International Relations and European Studies. Within these broad areas aspects of particular interest include the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU; EU-Asia relations; political thought and theory; security studies; intelligence studies; sexual politics; human rights.

Reputation

PIRES has earned the respect of many for its high standards in teaching and for its tradition of good quality research.

*It earned a score of 23/24 for Teaching Quality from the British Government's Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
*In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise it scored a score of 5/5* for the quality of its research. [ [http://education.guardian.co.uk/researchratings/table/0,11229,-4319371,00.html Education Guardian] ]
*Students gave PIRES 82% for student satisfaction. [ [http://www.unistats.com/nStudentSurvey.do;jsessionid=119A07E2F0E496C3DFC0AD312D6E4AA7.worker4?t=2011030211502461 unistats.com] ]
*PIRES was declared a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence by the European Commission.

taff

As of 2007 there were 20 academic, 8 teaching and 6 support staff all working within the department of PIRES.

Academics

*Dave Allen
*Dave Berry
*Paul Byrne
*Daniel Conway
*Oliver Daddow
*Rob Dover
*Helen Drake
*Maurice Fitzgerald
*Linda Hantrais
*Brian Hocking
*Ruth Kinna
*Robert Knight
*Jeremy Leaman

*Moya Lloyd
*Mike Smith
*Taku Tamaki
*Monica Threlfall
*Christina Ujma
*Mark Webber
*Martha Wörsching

Teaching staff

*Mike Batty
*Val Boyle
*Michel Cornette
*Ana Juncos
*Chris Lundie
*Matt McCullock
*Luisa Sutcliffe
*Arlette Williams

Notable alumni

*Paula Radcliffe
*Tanni Grey-Thompson
*James Gibson

External links

* [http://www.lboro.ac.uk Loughborough University official site]
* [http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/eu/about/index.html PIRES official site]
* [http://lufbra.net Loughborough Students Union site]

References