About the Contributors
See also: About the Book and About the Editors
Hilary Arksey is Senior Research Fellow in the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York. Over the past 12 years she has conducted a number of research studies of carers, including their experiences of assessment and their decisions and aspirations around paid work and retirement.
Rob Baggott is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Health Policy Research Unit at De Montfort University. His research interests include public health, alcohol policy, health service reform, patient and public involvement, and pressure groups.
Saul Becker is Professor of Social Policy and Social Care and Director of Research for the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham. He has also held Chairs at the University of Loughborough and University of Birmingham. His main research interests include informal family care, community care, vulnerable children and their families, and research methodology in social policy. He was the Chair of the Social Policy Association 2004-08.
Peter Beresford OBE is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University. He is Chair of Shaping Our Lives, a Trustee of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, an elected Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences and Visiting Fellow of the School of Social Work and Psychosocial Science at the University of East Anglia. With Suzy Croft he has written widely on the subjects of citizen involvement and empowerment.
Alice Bloch is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at City University. Her research interests are in the areas of migration, forced migration, and asylum policy. Her main teaching interests are in refugee studies and migration and she is Course Director for the MA Refugee Studies.
Catherine Bochel is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Lincoln where she teaches on a range of policy related courses. Her research interests include the policy process, participation, and local government on which she has published widely.
Michael Cahill is Reader in Social Policy at the University of Brighton. He is the author and editor of a number of books on the environment and social policy, and new approaches to the study of social policy with reference to the impact of ‘globalization’, and the changing nature of citizenship in contemporary welfare systems.
Claire Callender is Professor of Social Policy at London South Bank University and Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her research is about access and equity in higher education, focusing on student funding. She has written widely on this topic and undertaken research for some of the most significant inquires into student funding in the UK. In recognition of her expertise she has been selected as a Fulbright New Century Scholar for 2007-08.
John Clarke is Professor of Social Policy at the Open University. His research and teaching have centred on the social, cultural, and political struggles around the remaking of welfare states. These concerns have ranged from the impact of managerialism and consumerism on state policy and practice, through to wider questions of globalization, neo-liberalism, the reworking of alignments between nations, states, and welfare to the unsettled relationships between changing publics and changing public services.
Jochen Clasen is Professor of Comparative Social Policy in the School for Social and Political Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He has researched and written widely in the areas of social security, labour market policy, and cross-national analysis of welfare states, particularly across European countries. His teaching centres on European social policy and the political economy of the welfare state. He is co-chair of ESPAnet.
Bob Coles is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of York. He has a long-standing interest in youth policy and developed a degree specialising in children and young people at the University of York. He helped establish youth policy as a sub-area within social policy with a textbook in 1995 and the links between policy, research and practice in a further book developed with Barnardos in 2000. His research has focused on vulnerable young people, including two projects on Connexions funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, for which he also acted as research advisor on their youth research programme.
Guy Daly is Associate Dean at the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences in Coventry University. He has an academic and professional background in health and local government services. His areas of teaching and research include governance, community care, service user involvement, local government, housing and social, and public policy generally. He is also active in the area of local governance, having been an elected councillor, a school and college governor, and a board member of an urban development corporation and a housing association.
Howard Davis is Principal Research Fellow and Research Manager in The Local Government Centre at Warwick Business School. He has been centrally involved in projects advising on and/or evaluating the modernization and improvement of local government – commissioned by both national and local government bodies including the LGA, DWP, ODPM/DCLG and DfT. His work also includes research on the use of competition and procurement approaches in local government and international working with particular reference to improving the delivery of local and public services in Central and Eastern Europe.
Alan Deacon is Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at the University of Leeds. He has written widely on welfare reform in Britain and the United States, and was a member of the ESRC Research Group on Care, Values, and the Future of Welfare. He was Chair of the Social Policy Association from 2001-2004.
Hartley Dean is Reader in Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before his academic career he was a welfare rights worker in a multi-ethnic inner-London neighbourhood. His research interests and several publications have focused on poverty and social exclusion, survival strategies of marginalised social groups, discourses of welfare, welfare rights, social citizenship, and rights of redress.
Nick Ellison is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Core research and teaching interests include welfare politics and welfare state change with particular reference to the impact of ‘globalization’, and the changing nature of citizenship in contemporary welfare systems.
Tony Fitzpatrick is Reader in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the Nottingham University, and was Treasurer of the Social Policy Association 2003-2006. He has published many books and articles dealing with the relevance to social policy of new technologies, environmentalism and social democracy, among other social and political theories.
David Gladstone is currently Honorary Visiting Fellow in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. An historian by training, his teaching and research interests are in aspects of – and the inter-relationship between - British social policy past and present. He has authored and edited several books and is the editor of the Introducing Social Policy series for Open University Press.
Jon Glasby is Head of Health and Social Care Partnerships at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham. A qualified social worker by background, he leads a national programme of research, teaching, and consultancy to support more effective inter-agency working between health and social care. He is also a board member of the UK's Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).
Caroline Glendinning is Professor of Social Policy and Assistant Director in the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York. She leads SPRU’s Department of Health-funded research programme on ‘Choice and Independence across the Lifecourse’.
Howard Glennerster is Professor Emeritus at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he taught for 35 years. His continuing research is on the economics and finance of social welfare in this and other countries and its history. He is particularly concerned with the funding of health care and education.
Steve Harrison is Professor of Social Policy in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. He is currently on a long-term secondment to the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre. His research interests include health policy making, implementation and evaluation, and empirical research in health care organizations. He was formerly Professor of Health Policy and Politics at the University of Leeds, and has also worked in the civil service, the steel industry, and the NHS. He tries to maintain another life as a folk musician.
Linda Hantrais holds a chair in European Social Policy in the Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies at Loughborough University. Her main research interests are in cross-national comparative research theory, methodology and practice, with particular reference to socio-economic change, and social and family policy in Europe.
Colin Hay is Professor of Political Analysis at the University of Sheffield. His research interests are diverse, including at present the comparative political economy of contemporary Europe, welfare reform and political disaffection in advanced liberal democracies and analytical techniques in contemporary political science.
Michael Hill is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He has taught comparative social policy at Goldsmiths College and at the University of Brighton since his retirement from Newcastle. Has also made visits to universities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan. His research interests range from policy making and public policy processes, current developments in welfare services and benefits, particularly pensions to comparative social policy on all of which he has published widely.
John Hills is Director of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion and Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author or editor of a number of books on aspects of social policy. His research interests include income and wealth distribution, social security, pensions policy, housing, and the distributional effects of government policy. He was a member of the Pensions Commission from 2003 to 2006.
Chris Holden is Lecturer in Social Policy in the School of Health Sciences and Social Care at Brunel University. He has published widely on corporate provision of health and social care and international trade in health services, as well as more broadly on the political economy of welfare in the context of globalization. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Social Policy Association and the International Advisory Board for the journal Global Social Policy.
John Hudson is Lecturer in Social Policy in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York. His research and teaching interests include: the information society; e-government; policy analysis; comparative political economy of welfare; and socio-economic aspects of football.
Jeremy Kendall is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) at the University of Kent. His research interests include the policy process, the third sector, civil society, and the mixed economy of social policy. He has taught social research methods, economics and health economics, and aspects of British and European social policy, and is pioneering the delivery of teaching on European social policy and civil society at the University of Kent's Brussel's campus.
Patricia Kennett is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Policy Studies in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. Her research interests include globalization, governance and institutions, citizenship and the welfare state, comparative welfare systems, and social policy.
Hilary Land is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. She has had long standing interest in family policies broadly defined and is currently studying changes in how responsibilities for care are shared between the generations, as well as between men and women.
Jane Lewis is Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests lie in the fields of gender, families and social policies; the history of social policies; and the role of the third sector. She has written widely on family structure and family change.
Ruth Lister is Professor of Social Policy in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University, where she teaches on a wide range of social policy modules. Her main research interests are poverty, citizenship, gender, children, and welfare reform. She has published widely in these areas and in social policy more generally. She has sat on various independent commissions including the Commission on Poverty, Participation and Power and the Fabian Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty.
Ruth McDonald is Research Fellow at the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre, University of Manchester. Her research interests concern issues of change and resistance in organizations. Wherever possible she has explored these from inside the organization(s) concerned, examining amongst other things, the unintended consequences of change and its implications for individual identity. Recent research topics include the 'empowerment' of staff in a Primary Care Trust, threats to patient safety in the operating theatre, and the new general medical practice (GP) contract. All of which is a far cry from her old job as an NHS Finance Director.
Stephen McKay is Professor of Social Research at the Institute of Applied Social Studies at the University of Birmingham, and heads a research centre devoted to Wealth, Welfare and Wellbeing. He conducts research on poverty, inequality, family change and the role and effects of social security policies. Most of this research takes a quantitative approach. His teaching interests follow similar themes of the role of income maintenance policies, including pensions.
Tony Maltby works at the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce at NIACE. He was the founding editor of the journal Social Policy and Society, is co-editor (with Dr Debra Street, SUNY) of the Ashgate series New Perspectives on Ageing and Later Life and a co-editor of Social Policy Review. His main research interest is in the social policy of employment, work, and income in later life, with a central interest in the concept of Workability and its applicability to the UK. His move to CROW extends his interests to include training, education, and Life Long Learning issues.
Nick Manning is Professor of Social Policy and Sociology, and Director of the Institute of Mental Health at the University of Nottingham. His recent research interests include unemployment, poverty, ethnicity and health in Russia and Eastern Europe, and medical sociology and mental health policy. He has written books on health care, social problems, and comparative social policy.
Jane Millar is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy at the University of Bath. His research interests include family policy and the policy implications of family change, income support and labour market policies for unemployed people and lone parents, poverty, inequality and social exclusion, gender and social policy, and comparative social policy.
Alan Murie is Professor of Urban and Regional Studies at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, School of Public Policy at the University of Birmingham. He has been a leading contributor to housing research and policy debates for over twenty years. He was the founder editor of the journal Housing Studies and has published widely on housing and related issues.
Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy and Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the London School of Economics and Political Science and President of the British Society of Criminology. At the LSE he teaches sociology and criminology to undergraduate and postgraduate students. His major areas of research interest concern policing and security, comparative criminal justice and penal policy, and youth crime and youth justice.
Janet Newman is a Professor of Social Policy at the Open University. Her research and publications focus on analyses of governance, policy, and politics in trying to understand new social and cultural formations. This approach spans work on the managerial reforms of the 1990s; analyses of the politics and policies of New Labour; and changing configurations of power associated with the ‘modernization’ of European welfare states. Recent research projects include Power, Participation and Political Renewal: case studies in public participation and Creating citizen-consumers: changing relationships and identifications.
Robert Page is currently Reader in Democratic Socialism and Social Policy at the University of Birmingham. He has written and edited fifteen books on a wide range of topics in social policy. His main research interest is in the political history of the welfare state from 1940 to the present day.
Richard Parry is Reader in Social Policy in the School of Social and Political Studies at the University of Edinburgh, where he teaches on Scottish, UK, and European social policy and on public policy and management. His recent research projects have been on the role of the Treasury in social policy, the impact of devolution on the civil service throughout the UK, and a cross-national comparison of the cost of public administration.
Robert Pinker is Emeritus Professor of Social Administration at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an International Consultant with the Press Complaints Commission. His research interests lie in the fields of social policy theory, the impact of civil war on social welfare ,and the role of self-regulatory institutions in civil society.
Lucinda Platt is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex. She teaches British and comparative social policy, social stratification and inequality, and quantitative research methods. Her research focuses on child poverty, with a particular focus on historical context, and on ethnic minorities and disadvantage. She has published on poverty and ethnicity, child poverty, social mobility, social security, disability, and social capital, with articles in, inter alia, Sociology, The Journal of Social Policy and European Societies.
Martin Powell is Professor of Health and Social Policy in the Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham. His main research interests and publications are in the areas of historical and geographical aspects of social policy, health policy, new social democracy, partnerships, decentralization, and equality. He is the editor of Social Policy and Administration.
Mark Priestley is Reader in Disability Studies in the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds, and administrator of the international discussion forum disability research. He has taught disability studies since the mid-1990s and was previously a Lecturer in Rehabilitation Work. He has written extensively on disability theory, politics and policies, and his current interests include life course and comparative perspectives.
Carol Propper is Professor of Economics of Public Policy at the University of Bristol. Her main research interests and publications are in the field of health economics. Her research interests include the impact of competition and choice on health outcomes, whether public sector workers respond to financial incentives, and the links between low income and child health and behaviour.
Tess Ridge is Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Bath. She teaches courses on childhood sociology and social policy, and family sociology and social policy. Her research interests are childhood poverty and social exclusion, and children and family policy, especially financial support for children and families.
Rob Sykes is Principal Lecturer in Social Policy in the Division of Applied Social Sciences at Sheffield Hallam University where he teaches comparative social science, comparative policy-making, and comparative politics. His main research interests lie in the area of comparative social policy especially in Europe and East Asia and the study of globalization and political change.
Peter Taylor-Gooby is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Kent and is Director of the ESRC Risk Network. His main interests lie in cross-disciplinary work on risk, comparative cross-national work on European social policy, and work on theoretical developments in social policy. He believes strongly that progress is to be made by developing empirical tests of theoretically-based ideas.
Alan Walker is Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology at the University of Sheffield, a position he has held for more than 20 years. His main research interests are in the following fields: the sociology of ageing and old age; the social policy implications of population ageing; social policy in Europe, China and East Asia; and social quality. He currently directs the New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme, funded by five Research Councils and previously directed the ESRC Growing Older Programme.
Anne West is Professor of Education Policy in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is also Director of the Centre for Educational Research. Her research has focused on recent education policy, in particular market-oriented reforms and associated equity issues; she has a particular interest in school admissions policies. Her other research interests relate to financing education and comparative education policy. She teaches education policy on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at the LSE.
Fiona Williams is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Until recently she directed the ESRC Research Group on Care, Values and the Future of Welfare. She has written widely on gender, 'race' and ethnicity in social policy, and is currently researching the employment of migrant workers in home-based care in Europe. Her teaching and research interests focus on the place of care in contemporary society, including the changing nature of family lives and personal relationships, and the development of a political ethic of care.
Sharon Wright is Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Stirling. Her research interests are in the processes of making and implementing social policy, service delivery, unemployment, active labour market policies, social security, and poverty. Her teaching includes understanding social policy; gender, work and welfare; poverty, income and wealth; and qualitative research methods. She is managing co-editor of Social Policy and Society and co-convenor of the Scottish Social Policy Network.
Nicola Yeates is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the Open University. She has published widely on issues of globalization as it relates to social policy. She is co-editor of Global Social Policy: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Public Policy and Social Development and co-convenes the International and Comparative Social Policy group of the Social Policy Association.
