Leading social scientists honoured to be named new Fellows

Two OUBS academics are among the 51 leading UK social scientists to have been conferred the award of Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS). They have all been elected for their outstanding contributions to research and to the application of social science to policy, education, society and the economy.

Professor Emma Bell (Professor of Organisation Studies) and Dr Jacqueline Baxter (Director of SCiLAB, the Centre for Innovation in Legal and Business Education) are in prestigious company. The Academy’s Fellowship is made up of 1,400 distinguished individuals from academic, public and private sectors, across the full breadth of the social sciences. Through leadership, applied research, policymaking and practice, they have worked to help understand and tackle some of the toughest challenges facing us in modern times. 

It is more important than ever that Management and Organisation Studies research is positioned as an area of social scientific inquiry that contributes wider social value and serves the public interest. For this reason, I am delighted to be conferred as a Fellow of AcSS and I look forward to working with like-minded researchers in promoting the social sciences.

Professor Emma Bell
Professor of Organisation Studies, OUBS

I am honoured that my work has been recognised in this way and I’m very much looking forward to taking part in the work of the Academy and to furthering its aims. I would like to thank Professor Paul Miller, Fellow of the AcSS, and other colleagues from the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS) that supported my nomination. Engagement with the Academy will, I am sure, further enhance the work we are doing in SCiLAB (research and innovation in online business and legal education), as well as my own research into public sector governance and trust.

Dr Jacqueline Baxter
Director of SciLAB

OU colleague Parvati Raghuram (Professor of Geography and Migration, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences) has also been named as a new Fellow of AcSS.

We are immensely proud to welcome 51 new Fellows to the Academy who are so highly accomplished in their fields. They have been selected following a robust review by their peers and have been recognised for the excellence of their work and its applications in academia, business and the public sector.

Over the course of their careers they have surpassed the normal requirements of their positions and many have used social sciences to deliver public benefit in the realms of social, economic and environmental policy, and in higher education, regional development, government and law.

Professor Roger Goodman
President of the Academy of Social Sciences