Executive Members

Karen Rowlingson is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham.  She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and member of the REF sub panel for UoA 20: social work and social policy.  Karen’s research interests include: wealth and the wealthy; financial inclusion; the moral economy of inequality; inter-generational relationships and inequalities; and the social security and tax systems.

Ulster University

Markus joined Ulster University in 2013 as a Lecturer in the School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy. Previously, from 2011-2013 he was at the Social Policy Department at the LSE, where he also received his PhD in social policy (2011) and MSc in Management of NGOs (2004).

Markus' research interests include the role of civil society organisations in social policy design and delivery, and the social policy of the populist rightist parties in Europe.

University of Birmingham

Lee joined Birmingham's Department of Social Policy and Social Work in September 2013 as a Lecturer in Social Policy.

His principal research interests include poverty, inequality and asset-based welfare, youth policy, the mixed economy of welfare and alternative forms of welfare provision. His current research focuses on the themes of resistance to austerity and the dominance of neo-liberal economics by applying the social theory of time to policy analysis.

University of Edinburgh

Elke Heins is Lecturer in Social Policy and Deputy Director (Research) of the Graduate School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. Her principle research area is comparative and European social policy. She is particularly interested in labour market and unemployment policy as well as well as the politics of health and wellbeing. She is currently one of the co-editors of Social Policy Review.

University of York

Zoë is Senior Lecturer in Comparative and Global Social Policy. She is co-editor of the Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy and is a former co-editor of the Social Policy Review.

Her current research interests are located around the question of size within welfare state analysis and the ways in which approaches from political economy, sociology and anthropology can inform a better understanding of differences in social policy development in small and large states.

University of Stirling

Dr McCall is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Housing at the University of Stirling. Her work has included extensive research on the role of front-line workers, users and volunteers and the policy process and the integration of health and housing. This has included exploring front-line worker discretion, interpretations, activities and actions and bridging the gap between policy and practice. Dr McCall has a broad portfolio of social science teaching and research with the University of Stirling. Key interests and publications include work on housing and ageing, volunteering, devolution, poverty,  stigma, inequality, gender, urban society, museums and the cultural sector.

University of York

Enrico is Lecturer in Public and Social Policy at the University of York. His current research interests are in self-employment (and the wider context of changing wage-labour conditions and social protection systems), in public service reform (with a focus on the ideational underpinnings of reform trends), and in the crisis of liberal democracy (notably with respect to the principle of popular sovereignty).

University of Edinburgh

Ellen is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Social Studies of Health and Medicine in the Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, and an Associate Director of SKAPE, the Centre for Science, Knowledge & Policy at Edinburgh.
Her research interests are in citizen participation in public services; the voluntary and community sector; critical approaches to evidence-based policy; and interpretive policy analysis.