Research
The Department of French is an active research community: all academic staff are involved in research and scholarship, and we have a thriving group of postgraduate researchers. We cover a wide range of research areas, from medieval manuscripts to contemporary cinema. The Department has attracted over £1.5 million in research funding since 2001. We have undertaken pioneering research in the fields of digital technology, visual and performance art, literature, sociology and history.
RAE 2008
The results of the Research Assessment Exercise for 2008 show that for the proportion of research publications judged world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour, the French Department at the University of Sheffield is second only to Oxford.
For all its research activity, including the research environment, research teams (staff and postgraduate research students) and the esteem in which our researchers are held in the broader community, the French Department at Sheffield received the second-highest score for world-leading quality in the entire UK.
The French Department at the University of Sheffield emerged from the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise in seventh place overall of the league table ranking research activity in French throughout universities in Great Britain.
Research projects
The department is in the front rank of research activity as measured by the award of substantial grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and its forerunner, the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB). Over the last few years we have hosted a number of prestigious research projects that provided seven postdoctoral research assistant posts.
We have very close links with the University of Sheffield´s award-winning Humanities Research Institute, which has provided support for a number of research projects based in French.