Research hubs

Loughborough University London is home to several pioneering research hubs, each dedicated to addressing contemporary challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration and innovative research.

AI and humanity hub

Covering the latest innovations in AI and their broader societal implications, the AI and humanity hub conducts fundamental research and transformative innovation in a diverse array of areas that aim to help promote breakthrough developments in the field and tackle its associated challenges with an interdisciplinary approach.

The hub consists of five pillars of research and innovation including:  

  • Machine Intelligence for advanced AI theories and technologies.
  • Neuromorphic AI for human-machine interaction and human-AI collaboration.
  • SAFE AI for Secure, Accurate, Fair and Explainable AI to ensure AI is trustworthy, accountable, explainable, safe, and ethical for real-life applications.
  • AI-powered Sport, Health and Wellbeing for sport analytics and public health and wellbeing.
  • Humanity with AI for exploration of the impact, measures, and policies of ubiquitous AI on our daily lives and the future of the society and humanity through the prism of economics, humanities, and social sciences.

Climate and ecological transitions hub

The Climate and Ecological Transitions (CET) Hub is an interdisciplinary initiative focused on developing impactful research that navigates the complex political, economic, socio-cultural, and institutional factors shaping ecological transitions. Our work is driven by curiosity and open enquiry, exploring the core disciplinary logics that both enable and constrain the development of new epistemological frameworks essential for ecological transitions.

By collaboratively identifying and addressing key transition challenges, the CET Hub fosters interdisciplinary, pluralistic, and applied dialogues. We bridge disciplines and engage with a diverse range of academic institutions and stakeholders—spanning grassroots organisations, elites, and communities from across the Global North and South—that embrace diverse perspectives on what ecological transition involves and its potential outcomes.

Our research focus areas include:

  • Defining sustainability across institutional and organisational contexts.
  • Communicating sustainability through sport.
  • Organisational responses to climate change.
  • Developing interdisciplinary research methods for climate action.
  • Navigating nature-society dualism.

Communication and social change (CSC) hub

The CSC hub at Loughborough University London promotes participation, storytelling, voice, activism, and citizen empowerment through dialogic, decolonising, and inclusive communication.

We foster interdisciplinary collaborations to address key global challenges such as: mobility (refugees, migration), planetary futures (sustainable ecologies, degrowth), peace and conviviality (citizenship, social movements, governance, inclusion), digitalisation (AI & society, digital justice) and corporatisation (CSR and privatisation of funding, corporate stakeholder activism). These collaborations connect CSC with fields like design, digitalisation, politics and management.

Recognised globally as a hub for research in Communication and Social Change, our key activities include:  

  • Major events: Communication and Change Hackathon (2017), Freire Seminar (2019), Freire Centenary Celebrations (2021), Annual
  • Freire Lectures (since 2022), and Sustainable Development Symposium (2023).
  • Research visits: Hosting 40+ visiting scholars from 30+ countries.
  • Funded research projects: ECR fellowships, Marie Curie Fellowship, DFID/FCDO grants, and studentships.  

We welcome visiting scholars, PhD students and contact from prospective partners in research and practice. 

Creative experiences and technologies hub

The creative experiences and technologies hub provides research focus on a rapidly evolving area of innovation, where the creative industries (including design, performance, museums, and galleries) intersect with the built environment, public spaces, and the emerging metaverse. Advanced computing technologies—such as eXtended and Augmented Reality, real-time software engines, advanced visualisation, and AI—are transforming production enabling new forms of experience across the creative industries, which benefit various other sectors.  

Located at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, this hub serves as a unique destination for the experimental exploration of these technologies. It brings together:

  • Academic institutions - notably Loughborough, UCL, and UAL.
  • Key creative research partners including the V&A, BBC, Sadler's Wells, and Wayne McGregor Dance.
  • Cutting-edge businesses and start-ups (such as Abba Voyage, 59 Productions, and Plexal companies), and facilities partners (Here East and QEOP venues).
  • All collaborators are experimenting with advanced computing technologies to enable innovative experiences for producers, users, and audiences alike.

Policy, sport and geopolitics in an unstable world hub

Our hub harnesses the University’s existing energies to drive impact and change in this highly topical field. Through inclusive activities with a wide diversity of academic and professional partners we seek to explore and address several pressing questions:  

  • Who and what are the global forces to watch?
  • Where are the risks and opportunities in the commercialisation of elite sport, especially in ethics?
  • How do sport and sustainability interact and influence each other?
  • Can sport address and mitigate conflict through its peace-building potential?

We prioritise the open exchange of knowledge, fostering collaborative work, and the creation of best practice in research and innovation.

By bringing together experts and stakeholders, we aim to generate insights and solutions that can make a significant difference in understanding and navigating the complex interplay between policy, sport, and geopolitics.

Social inequalities and justice hub

Social Inequalities and Justice is an inclusive interdisciplinary research hub, driven by both curiosity and a commitment to tackling real-world challenges. Our research explores the intersecting forms of social, political, and economic inequalities across various social and geopolitical contexts, while also aiming to develop innovative and impact-driven approaches to justice. 

 The range of social inequalities examined include issues related to class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, migration, conflict, and territorial belonging. We focus on how these inequalities intersect and interact, as well as how different conceptions of justice—social, reparatory, and epistemological—are imagined and enacted, each with both symbolic and material dimensions. 

The hub brings together a diverse group of established and early-career scholars from Loughborough University London, along with partner organisations in the UK and internationally, to create a collaborative network dedicated to advancing the study and practice of justice.