Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation

CRESI was established by Founding Director Professor Mark Harvey in 2007. Professor Harvey is the author of numerous influential books, including, most recently, Inequality and Democratic Egalitarianism: 'Marx's Economy and Beyond' and Other Essays (2018, authored with Norman Geras). With his strong research focus on political economy, the circulation of global commodities, and theories of economic justice, Professor Harvey positioned CRESI to play an important role in national and international discussions about efforts to combat growing global economic inequality and environmental degradation. As Emeritus Professor at the University of Essex, Professor Harvey remains an involved and inspiring presence at CRESI. 

In 2017, Professor Linsey McGoey became Director of CRESI, with Dr. Katy Wheeler as Deputy Director.

We draw together strengths from our Department of Sociology in a number of areas, including:

• climate change
• the finitude of earth's resources (land, water, energy)
• systems of provision and consumption
• economic and social rights
• cultural economy
• welfare regimes and pensions
• slavery and forced labour, historical and contemporary
• food and consumption
• the pharmaceutical industry
• work and employment
• internet economies, formal and informal
• gender budgeting and fiscal sociology
• biotechnology and bioeconomy
• economies of knowledge
• waste and recycling

Collaborative research within the Department of Sociology is strongly supported, as is interdisciplinary research with our researchers and staff in other parts of the University. We have close links the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), Essex Business School and Health and Human Sciences.

A number of economic sociology approaches are strongly represented within the Centre. These include:

• network theory
• fiscal sociology
• political economy
• political ecology
• economic and social rights theory
• neo-Polanyian approaches
• sociology of consumption
• economic history
• cultural economy and history

We aim to stimulate dialogue between these approaches, and with closely related intellectual traditions such as innovation studies, evolutionary economics, the new geography, feminist economics, institutional economics, management and accountancy.