ABOUT BRISTOL SOCIAL SCIENCES REVIEW

The Bristol Social Sciences Review (BSSR) was created by then-SPAIS student Oscar Wollen in September 2020, as way to showcase students’ writing outside of their degrees. Research Analysts at BSSR have autonomy in terms of the selection and framing of research topics, giving them ample opportunity to pursue interests outside the confines of the formal curriculum.

 

BSSR's first issue was published just as the second national lockdown came into effect in November 2020. The style and format were much more akin to that of newspaper journalism, with requirements of submission being that articles were ‘contemporary’ and adhered to a 1,500-word limit.  Furthermore, the Issues in Volume One published monthly, meaning that Research Analysts were constrained in terms of the scope and depth of the work they could produce alongside graded coursework. 

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Volume Two took a different approach to the publication process. This included expanding our Editorial Team’s review process, lengthening the approved word count, and relaxing the content criteria in order to allow for a more scholarly engagement with research topics. While we only published three Issues, this allowed for much greater depth of the work presented as Research Analysts had more space and time to engage with topics of interest. 

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Much of this has been carried through to Volume Three, however, we have now begun to focus more on the exposure and visibility of BSSR as a brand. First and foremost, we exist to give students a proverbial ‘leg up’ in the academic industry; an industry often criticised for being hostile and exclusionary to minorities and those without inside connections or knowledge. By expanding our brand, we hope to better position our Research Analysts in terms of the impact of their work, and the visibility of themselves as researchers.