Research Agenda | Centre for Social Isolation Studies

At CSIS, we study belonging as essential social infrastructure. Our work combines evidence generation, policy thinking, and public insight to better understand how contemporary societies remain connected or drift apart.

Research Philosophy

Evidence · Policy · Public Insight

CSIS operates at the intersection of rigorous interdisciplinary scholarship, public-facing research communication, and policy relevance. We seek not only to measure isolation, but to understand its causes, consequences, and the institutional conditions that foster belonging.

Through original surveys, longitudinal data, analytical briefs, public dashboards, and cross-disciplinary inquiry, CSIS aims to make social connection a serious object of research, policy design, and civic understanding.

Flagship Research Domains

Core areas of institutional focus

Working Life & Adult Social Isolation

Exploring workplace fragmentation, urban disconnection, digital overload, and changing patterns of adult belonging in contemporary working environments.

Ageing, Loneliness & Later-Life Disconnection

Understanding social withdrawal, loneliness, dignity, and connection in ageing populations and changing family structures across the life course.

Women & Invisible Domestic Isolation

Investigating unseen forms of household isolation, emotional invisibility, and constrained social connection experienced within domestic settings.

Wider Thematic Programmes

Expanding the boundaries of social connection research

Digital Isolation & Platform Life

How hyper-connectivity, platform dependency, algorithmic sociality, and digital fatigue reshape belonging.

Youth Disconnection & Identity

Emerging patterns of loneliness, identity fragmentation, peer disengagement, and social uncertainty among younger populations.

Family Change & Shrinking Networks

Changing family structures, declining intergenerational proximity, and the weakening of everyday relational ecosystems.

Urban Loneliness & Migration

The social consequences of mobility, anonymous city life, migrant dislocation, and fragile urban belonging.

Community Resilience & Social Cohesion

Institutions, neighbourhoods, civic trust, and local social infrastructure that strengthen collective belonging.

Economics of Isolation

Productivity, care burdens, ageing costs, wellbeing economics, and the wider social cost of disconnection.

Research Methods

How CSIS generates insight

Original Surveys & Data Systems

Building longitudinal datasets, public dashboards, and scalable survey infrastructure on belonging and isolation.

Field & Community Inquiry

Grounded qualitative work, interviews, local studies, and community-level observation across diverse populations.

Policy Translation

Turning evidence into actionable recommendations for institutions, communities, and policymakers.

Future Programme Areas

Building a long-horizon research institution

Over time, CSIS aims to expand its institutional work through comparative global research, annual state-of-belonging reports, collaborative academic networks, policy briefs, thematic fellowships, and publicly accessible social connection observatories that deepen understanding of human connection in changing societies.

Our ambition is not merely to study isolation, but to help shape the intellectual and policy architecture of belonging in the twenty-first century.

Researching Connection.
Advancing Belonging.

Through interdisciplinary evidence, institutional imagination, and public insight, CSIS seeks to elevate social connection as one of the defining research and policy questions of modern life.