School of Business

The Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures

The Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures (CSWEF) was established in 2013 to position the University of Leicester at the forefront of analytical and policy research on work and employment futures. We aim to shape work, employment and labour policy analysis and inform practice by producing systematic theory and a secure evidence base to address existing knowledge gaps.

Understanding the workplace

CSWEF is interested in opening-up debates on the way contemporary workplace dynamics are changing as well as the way they are connected to wider societal and political-economic dynamics. We research these experiences, practices and relations through the lenses of empirical, contextualised, comparative, and diversity-focused analyses.

Current foci for this research are precarious and non-standard forms of work; health, creative and platform work; technology and work; labour market transitions of youth as well as older workers; work in the voluntary sector and social enterprises; work in multi-national corporations and global value chains; employee involvement, wellbeing and the non-work interface.

Organising and mobilising

CSWEF research explores alternative forms of organising through a shared commitment to understand how workers, stakeholders and activists mobilise in contemporary society. It includes studying the role of digital platforms in organising and mobilising practices, plus traditional methods of mobilisation. Our employment relations research includes a focus on actors, such as employer associations, the state and supranational institutions like the EU, with a special focus on trade unions and trade union activist experiences across the globe.

Hearing the unheard

CSWEF members share a mutual appreciation for our academic privilege to explore organisations, practices and experiences that would otherwise be unheard or unseen. Our theoretically grounded, sociologically imaginative approaches give voice to issues that would otherwise go unspoken. Areas of interest here include the precarious nature of work and employment, the impacts of economic crisis, austerity, restructuring, outsourcing and new forms of work. 

Research events

Find out about our forthcoming events and seminars

Key publications and reports

Find out about some of our key publications 

Members

Details about the particular interests and current projects of individual group members can be found on their staff profile pages.

Cluster Director: Dr Nik Hammer

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