Research

Academics across Queen's Business School are engaged with the policymaking process. QBS has particular expertise in the health and social care sector, with research on topics including: healthcare quality management; demand for health services; early life conditions; work disability; workforce ageing; the determinants of health inequalities; evaluating health policy interventions; demography and fertility; and Covid-19.

One of the ways in which QBS contributes to the wider scholarly community is through editorial roles at leading journals including the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal; Accounting and Business Research; Economic History Review; European Journal of Finance; and the Global Journal of Health Science. During the most recent REF period, 21 academics from the School were involved in editing 28 journals. 

We welcome and encourage applications from outstanding researchers around the world who wish to spend time at Queen’s Business School. Our policy for all individuals from other universities and institutions who are funded from sources external to the University and who wish to visit the campus can be found here. 

QBS funds conference travel and visitors and seminar speakers from international universities to stimulate joint research projects. QBS also funds and facilitates workshops through its departments and research centres and has received grants from the UKIERI-UGC Thematic Partnership and BiNoMa.

In the most recent REF period School academics published papers with 519 authors from other UK universities and 1,002 authors from outside the UK. Our academics partnered with colleagues from Paris School of Economics, Erasmus University, Goethe University Frankfurt, UC3M, and Antwerp University. During the Covid-19 lockdown, the School joined a consortium of universities and central banks to start the International Macro History Online Seminar, which continues to meet fortnightly. 

We have a vibrant and growing community of postgraduate research students from across the globe. We facilitate an annual PhD colloquium where students present their work, funding is available for workshops and conferences, and our research centres include PhD students in all activities, also giving students the opportunity to meet all visiting seminar speakers. 

Speakers at our seminar series are a mixture of internal and external academics. In the most recent REF period, the School hosted a total of 201 seminars by external international scholars from institutions, including top US universities such as Harvard Business School, Notre Dame University, Stanford University, the University of California at Davis, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. QBS sponsors various specialist workshops and outreach events throughout the year through its research centres. QBS has attracted major international conferences to Belfast, including the Economic History Society Annual Conference in 2019, and the Royal Economic Society in 2024.