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THE INSTITUTE
An introduction to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies
Opening Hours | Membership & Admission | Institute Staff, Fellows and Students | Centre for International Human Rights | Governance and Development
Annual Reports of the Institute
The Institute & the University of London
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies is the only postgraduate academic institution in the United Kingdom devoted to the study of the Commonwealth. The Institute is the national and international centre of excellence for policy-relevant research and teaching on Commonwealth studies, focusing on North-South relations, global peace and security, development, good governance, human rights and the politics of civil society. The ICS also offers an MA in Human Rights. More than 150 seminars and conferences take place at ICS each year - most are open to all. Regular programmes include Caribbean Societies in Regional Context, Commonwealth History, Australian Stuides, Canadian Studies, South Asian Studies, and Human Rights.
The Library is an international resource holding more than 190,000 items, with particularly impressive Caribbean, Southern African and Australian holdings and 200 archival collections.
More information on the origins and development of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies can be found on the Archive Awareness Campaign's Beginnings website, at http://k1.ioe.ac.uk/is/archives/Beginnings/begscommonwealth.html
Opening Hours
The Institute is normally open 9.30am - 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.
TERM DATES:
Academic year 2009-10
Autumn: Monday 28th September - Friday 11th December
Spring: Monday 11th January - Friday 26th March
Summer: Monday 26th April - Friday 18th June
Membership & Admission
MEMBERSHIP
Membership of the Institute is free to members of academic (and academically related) staff - including retired members - and registered postgraduate students of an institution of Higher Education whether in Britain or abroad. Other persons are admitted at the discretion of the Director or the Institute Board on payment of an annual fee of £65 (£30 for the unwaged). Non-members can use the library as Occasional Readers on payment of the following fees: £5 a day or £15 a week (£2 and £6 for the unwaged).Undergraduates can use the library as occasional readers, though they cannot become members of the Institute. There is no charge for admission for undergraduates.
Applications for membership of the Institute should be made on the appropriate form to the Administrative Secretary.
Members are entitled to use the Common Room, and to attend seminars and most meetings, although attendance at some special meetings is by invitation only. Membership may also include access to the Library; please see the Library’s admissions page for more information.
Download a copy of the Institute's membership form.
ADMISSION
All those seeking admission to the Institute should remember to bring or send appropriate identification.
Governance and development
This section provides details regarding the constitution and governance of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, and explains the management structure of the Institute. For details of the Institute's relationship within the School of Advanced Study, University of London, please see the next section ("The Institute and the University of London").
Management structure: The Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies is Professor Philip Murphy. The academic, management and financial functions of the Institute are managed as: teaching programme; research; and administration.
The Strategic Plan for 2006- 11 is available.
Details of the School of Advanced Study's policies on equal opportunities and diversity, to which the Institute is committed, can be found at: http://www.sas.ac.uk/policies.html
The Institute & the University of London
The University of London is uniquely situated for the study of the Commonwealth, both past and present. London's libraries and archives hold indispensable resources for scholars of the colonial past as well as of the contemporary Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Secretariat is based in London and is the most important of the agencies bringing Commonwealth governments together on matters of common concern; there are in addition a host of non-governmental voluntary associations with Commonwealth concerns in the capital. The wealth of London's libraries and associations is paralleled by the rich ethnic diversity of London as a city.
The School of Advanced Study is part of the University of London and was established on 1 August 1994, bringing together the specialised scholarship and resources of eight prestigious postgraduate research institutes to offer academic opportunities, facilities and stimulation across a wide range of subject fields in the humanities and social sciences. Today, the School's member Institutes are the Warburg Institute, and the Institutes of Advanced Legal Studies, Classical Studies, Commonwealth Studies, English Studies, Germanic and Romance Studies, Historical Research, Musical Research, Philosophy, and the Study of the Americas. The Courtauld Institute of Art, the University of London, The Wellcome Institute, and National Archives are Associates of the School.
The individual Institutes, which draw together the academic resources of the University in their respective fields, have traditionally been open as environments for research and study to scholars and other specialists from all over the United Kingdom and beyond. The School builds upon this tradition, and upon its Institutes' existing strengths, so as to offer enhanced opportunities for work across subject boundaries within the School, and to develop interdisciplinary research and training at the highest level, and to strengthen the facilities its Institutes already provide.
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies has recently moved to new premises on the second floor of the South Block in Senate House. The Institute was established by the University of London in 1949 to encourage research in the Commonwealth field. Its primary object is to provide research facilities for academics and postgraduate students from the University of London and other universities throughout the Commonwealth and the rest of the world. It has generally concentrated on the social sciences (especially politics and international relations), and contemporary history. In the recent past research at the Institute has given attention to such widely diverse subjects as the end of empire, human rights, and health issues; it also encourages interdisciplinary meetings between natural and social scientists.
Besides providing opportunities for graduate study the Institute houses a number of major research projects. It also offers a full and lively seminar programme. Annually this comprises some ten or so series which usually meet fortnightly in term time. Recent seminar series have been: Australian Studies; Canadian Studies; Caribbean Societies in Regional Context; Commonwealth History; South Asian Studies; Human Rights; and Black and Asian Studies. You can find a list of curent series here. Together with the academic staff and research fellows of the Institute, many distinguished visitors from all over the world contribute to these seminars and to the many conferences and symposia organized at the Institute. The range of scholarly topics enables students to widen their interests far beyond the limits of any formal curriculum.
Annual Reports of the Institute
If you would like to be added to the mailing list to receive our Annual Report please contact the Institute by email at ics@sas.ac.uk giving your name and address and indicating your affiliation and/or interest in the Institute. Where possible we try to minimise the need to print our Annual Report so we will automatically send a copy of the link to the electronic version as soon as it's available unless you stipulate otherwise.
Page last updated December 4, 2009
School of Advanced Study, University of London
2nd Floor, South Block, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU
tel: +44 (0)20 7862 8844 fax:+44 (0)20 7862 8813 e-mail: ics@sas.ac.uk