Graham Room

Profile

Graham Room is Professor of European Social Policy at the University of Bath.  He is author, co-author or editor of thirteen books, the most recent being Agile Actors on Complex Terrains: Transformative Realism and Public Policy (Routledge, 2016). He was Director of the Institute for Policy Research until December 2013.

He was Founding Editor of the Journal of European Social Policy and in 2004 was elected a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.

• Consultant to the European Commission in regard to the development of its social action programmes in the field of poverty and social exclusion (1979-85)
• Coordinator, Evaluation of the Second European Programme to Combat Poverty (1985-9)
• Coordinator, EU Observatory on National Policies to Combat Social Exclusion (1990-93)
• Member of the Council of Europe Steering Group on Poverty and Marginalisation (1990-9)
• Director of Studies and coordinator of a seven-nation consortium, delivering a Masters Degree in European Social Policy Analysis (1990-95)
• Founder Editor, Journal of European Social Policy (1991-2000)
• Special Adviser, House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities (1994)
• Head of School of Social Sciences, University of Bath (1995-7)
• Chair, University of Bath in Swindon Project Team, coordinating implementation of University’s academic plan for Swindon (2001-3)
• Chair, International Assessment Board, Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (2006-7)

Over the years my research has spanned five broad themes:

• Welfare States and Social Policies (1979-2004)
• Poverty and Social Exclusion in Europe (1979-2007)
• Social Dimension of the Knowledge Economy (2001-2004)
• Agile Actors on Complex Terrains (2008-present)
• Dynamics of Cumulative Innovation in Complex Social Systems (DCICSS) (2016-present)
  

This latest research is concerned with complexity theory and social dynamics and with the implications for policy analysis.  I retain a strong interest however – and a readiness to supervise research students – in the following areas

• Complexity theory and social dynamics
• Cross-national policy learning
• Poverty and social exclusion
• European and comparative social policy