Our Research Ethos: Applied Inquiry
Research at Parvis Exeter Academy is the engine of our academic continuum. It is not confined to laboratories or libraries; it is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and applied endeavour that informs our teaching at every level. Our ethos is one of “Applied Inquiry”—we believe research has a responsibility to engage with and offer solutions to the most complex and urgent ‘wicked problems’ of our time.
Our location in Athens provides a unique intellectual grounding for this work. We are committed to a model of research that is technically advanced but also human-centric, ethically aware, and historically informed. We do not simply ask “Can we do this?” We compel our researchers to ask, “Should we do this?”
Our research is structured not in traditional, rigid departments, but through flexible, problem-focused Research Hubs. These hubs are interdisciplinary by design, bringing together faculty, postgraduate researchers, and even high-achieving undergraduates to attack a problem from multiple angles.
Key Research Hubs: Where We Converge
While our faculty engage in a wide breadth of scholarly work, our institutional research is focused through two flagship centres of excellence that align with our core specialisms.
1. Hub Focus: The Centre for Computational Ethics & AI (CCEA)
- Mission: The CCEA exists to bridge the gap between high-level technical AI development and the deep philosophical traditions of ethics and governance. Rooted in the birthplace of Western philosophy, the CCEA’s mission is to align the development of artificial intelligence with enduring human values.
- Key Themes: Our research investigates AI safety and alignment, algorithmic fairness and bias, data privacy in a surveillance economy, and the future of digital governance. We are less interested in simply building a “better” algorithm; we are interested in defining what “better” means.
- In practice, this means a computer scientist working on a new machine learning model collaborates directly with a philosopher from our Classics faculty and a policy expert from our Governance stream.
- Current Projects: Current work includes ‘Project Delphi’, an initiative to create transparent, auditable AI models for public policy decision-making, and research into the long-term societal impacts of generative AI on creative and knowledge-based professions.
2. Hub Focus: The Studio for Immersive & Critical Design (SICD)
- Mission: The SICD explores the human-technology interface beyond the flat screen. It uses design as a method of critical inquiry, creating prototypes and experiences that question our assumptions about technology, culture, and reality.
- Key Themes: Our research focuses on immersive technologies (VR/AR), tangible interfaces, and speculative design. We are also a leading centre for the Digital Humanities, collaborating with museums and cultural archives in Athens to create new forms of interactive storytelling and digital preservation.
- Current Projects: ‘The E-Agora’ is a flagship project that uses haptic technology, VR, and AI-driven characters to create a multi-sensory, academically rigorous reconstruction of the ancient Athenian Agora, allowing students to “debate” a Socratic problem in its original context. Other studio work explores how tangible data visualisations can help communities understand complex issues like climate change.
The Undergraduate Research (UROP) Pathway
We believe research is not something that should wait until postgraduate study. Parvis Exeter runs a competitive Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP). This scheme allows talented and motivated BA/BSc students to apply for paid, part-time positions as Junior Researchers within our key hubs.
UROP participants work directly with MA/MSc candidates and faculty PIs (Principal Investigators) on real, publishable research. They may find themselves co-authoring a paper, presenting at a conference, or contributing to a major grant proposal. This programme is central to our ‘continuum’ model, providing unparalleled mentorship and accelerating our students’ intellectual development.
The Postgraduate Community
Our postgraduate students (MA, MSc, MBA, MRes) are the lifeblood of our research community. We maintain deliberately small, selective cohorts to ensure an extremely high level of direct faculty mentorship. The postgraduate experience is defined by weekly research colloquia, cross-disciplinary critique sessions, and teaching assistantship opportunities that provide vital pedagogical training. We are not just training researchers; we are training the next generation of academic and industry leaders.