About the School

The Information School (iSchool) at The University of Sheffield is a thriving community of students, educators and researchers dedicated to the study and advancement of the information field and its professions. Our field is characterised by its distinctive, interdisciplinary focus on the interactions between people, information and digital technologies, and has the ultimate goal of enhancing information access, and the management, sharing and use of information, to benefit all aspects of human endeavour and well-being. Science and engineering, medicine and healthcare, education, business, and culture and the arts, are just some of the areas in which effective information provision is of vital importance. Good information empowers people and enriches their lives. Expertise to use, design and manage information products, services and systems effectively has never been more important than today, in our increasingly fast-moving and complex world.

The Sheffield iSchool has been at the forefront of developments in the information field for nearly fifty years. We are recognised as the leading school of our kind in the UK, with an international reputation for the quality of our teaching and research, and for the achievements of our graduates. With a distinguished record of world-leading research, we have achieved the highest possible grade in every one of the national evaluations of research quality in UK universities since these began in 1986. Through our research we seek to make a significant intellectual contribution to advancing the frontiers of knowledge in our field, but also to impact on the management and use of information in very practical ways in diverse social contexts.

The profile of our academic staff is multidisciplinary, combining specialist information science expertise with academic expertise from the humanities, social sciences, engineering and sciences, and also bringing experience from professional practice in information roles. This breadth enables us to engage with information issues and problems from different perspectives and within a range of different domains, and to collaborate effectively with partners from diverse areas in which information expertise is needed. We have particular strengths in public, academic and digital libraries, information behaviour and information literacy, information retrieval and interaction, information and knowledge management, educational and health informatics, information systems, and chemoinformatics. We run a vibrant doctoral programme which attracts students from many different countries to work with us in all of these areas.

Students who come to study with us at the iSchool are at the heart of our community. Our teaching portfolio includes undergraduate programmes in information management and we will be launching an innovative new degree in informatics in 2012. We also offer a wide range of professional preparation and professional enhancement Masters. Students joining any of our degree programmes, some of which are run jointly with the University´s Management School or Department of Computer Science, will find that they acquire a solid foundation of core information knowledge and skills combined with more specialist expertise in aspects they choose to suit their own particular interests. The knowledge-base, values and skills they take with them into the sphere of work are greatly prized by employers in fields of all kinds. As part of our mission to provide world-quality university education in information, we aim to inspire and help our students to pursue their highest ambitions for their academic and professional careers.