The Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge (abbreviated POLIS) is the department at the University of Cambridge responsible for research and instruction in political science, international relations and public policy. It is part of the Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science.
The inductive study of political science at Cambridge was pioneered in the 19th century by John Robert Seeley. In 1928, the Rockefeller Foundation endowed the university's first chair in political science, which was situated in the Faculty of History and inaugurally held by Ernest Barker. The Social and Political Sciences Committee was formed in 1970 as an early attempt to unify research and instruction in political science at the university and, in 2004, the Department of Politics was established.
POLIS, formed in 2009 by the merger of the former Department of Politics and the Centre for International Studies, is administratively housed at the university's Alison Richard Building on the Sidgwick Site.
In 2016, POLIS PhD student Giulio Regeni was killed while carrying out research in Cairo, Egypt.
Politics and International Studies are taught at the undergraduate level through either the Human, Social, and Political Sciences Tripos or the History and Politics Tripos. At the postgraduate level, the department offers nine Masters' programmes and four PhD programmes.
The department has been ranked top in the UK for the teaching of politics by the 2025 Complete University Guide and second in the 2025 Best UK universities for politics. The 2025 edition of the QS World University Rankings ranked Cambridge seventh in the world for the study of politics and the 2025 Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked it fifth. Its masters and doctoral programmes have been ranked among the 25 "Best International Relations Schools in the World" by Foreign Policy. In the 2021 UK government Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise, the department was ranked 21st out of 56 institutions.
The peer-reviewed journal Cambridge Review of International Affairs is published by Taylor & Francis in academic affiliation with the department.
Seven specialised centres are housed within the department.