I have been Principal Investigator or Co-I on research projects worth over £1.7 million in competitive external funding. My central research themes are childhood, youth, education, citizenship and volunteering. My expertise includes the geographies of youth organisations, character education, youth volunteering, children’s digital culture, and the politics of gaming, gamification and gambling. Some examples of selected research programmes include:
Gambling on Political Futures: Geographies of Political Betting
British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, 2025-2026 (PI)
The Gamification of Citizenship
2023-2024 (PI)
Between Gaming and Gambling: Children and Young People’s Experiences and Understandings of Gambling Style Systems in Digital Games
2019-2022, ESRC
(PI Prof. James Ash)
Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda (RYVU): Skills acquisition and employability through volunteering by displaced youth in Uganda
2019-2022, ESRC/GCRF
(PI Prof. Matt Baillie Smith)
Mapping the Moral Geographies of Education: Character, Citizenship and Values
2019-2021 (PI)
National Citizen Service and the Geographies of Youth Citizenship
2014-2017, ESRC Future Research Leader Award (PI)
Connecting Youth with Geographic Communities
2012, AHRC (PI Prof. Rhys Jones)
Post-war youth culture and the Jewish Lads’ Brigade
2012, Royal Geographical Society (PI)
Geographies of Youth Citizenship in Scouting
2011-2012; 2007-2010, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship & ESRC Open PhD (PI)
For publications from these and other research projects, please click here…
Professor Sarah Mills 