The Centre for People's Justice

Life opportunities and wellbeing in the UK are marred by inequality and social injustice. Research has identified many of the causes and resultant harms but often struggles to inspire and support meaningful change. Across the UK and wider world, inequalities and social injustice are deepening. As noted in the AHRC scoping review, ‘we can’t carry on tinkering at the edges.’ Doing something new requires moving beyond seeing social justice as a topic of academic investigation or aspiration. It requires a distinctive and comprehensive methodology – a new way of relating, acting, thinking and learning about social justice to achieve meaningful change. A new social justice research methodology must promote mutual trust and accountability through co-production and partnership. The mission of the Centre for People’s Justice is to bring Law and Social Justice research closer to people’s hopes, interests and needs for fairer, stronger and more inclusive societies. It will dynamically integrate Law, Arts and Humanities (Law, A&H) approaches to incubate a new social justice methodology to achieve that mission; one that enables creative, multi-sectoral, participative and place-based interactions. Our proposed Centre is both timely and ground-breaking as the first trauma-informed research centre, harnessing vulnerability as a route to empowerment. From across the four jurisdictions of the UK, we have drawn 7 universities together with 38 multi-sectoral partners from cultural/creative; legal/administrative; business/philanthropic; civic/NGO sectors. We will work collaboratively as a Foundational Alliance to share knowledge and resources; implement a comprehensive programme of education, training and research; and develop the first global network of university-based social justice law clinics. Civic organisations and NGOs from our Foundational Alliance will co-ordinate Community Steering Groups comprised of people with lived experience of the issues we are seeking to address, working with researchers to co-create research agendas and feed into research design and funding decisions. Objectives will be advanced through three research workstreams to exemplify how Law A&H can be creatively integrated and directed towards meaningful change: Crafting the Law (influencing how the law is made) Performing the Law (improving how legal rights and processes are experienced in everyday life); Literacies and Legacies (enhancing understanding of the law and its impacts: past, present and future). Centre research projects will help to develop our social justice methodology. They will contribute to transforming research practice and produce meaningful change in people’s lives. Creative and cultural partners from our Foundational Alliance will work with HEI partners as creative co-convenors to provide mentoring and guidance to academic and community researchers delivering these projects. Our activities will democratise and diversify social justice research by creating strong leadership opportunities for early career and mid-career scholars, funding cross-sectoral fellowships, co-producing education and training with creative practitioners and by reserving PhD studentships for applicants from non-traditional backgrounds. Outputs will include: a new Social Justice Methodology; a comprehensive Social Justice Education Programme; distinctive Law, A&H methods training; the first Trauma-Informed Healing Hub and Research Toolkit; 20 funded research projects; a range of published outputs including monographs and edited collections; a new Open Access Journal on New Approaches to Social Justice; a People’s Justice Podcast series; and a global network of university-based Social Justice law clinics.