New Year Honours List Includes Number of Social Scientists

Henrietta Moore

A social anthropologist who works to create a globally sustainable future and a geographer who until recently headed the Economic and Social Research Council were among a number of British citizens cited for “service to social science” in Queen Elizabeth’s just-released New Year Honours lists. A number of academic and practical social scientists were among the 1,196 individuals who received an award that can range from a knighthood to recognition as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

All told, five people were awarded specifically for service to social science. This year they included:

Henrietta Moore, a fellow of the British Academy director of the Institute for Global Prosperity and chair of Culture, Philosophy and Design at University College London, and a trustee of both the SHM Foundation and the Barbican Centre Trust, was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. A social anthropologist, her citation explains, Moore “has undertaken extensive empirical work, mainly in Africa, focusing on gender, livelihood strategies, social transformation and development. Her recent work focuses on the notion of global sustainable futures, virtual worlds, new technologies and online identities.”

Paul Joseph Boyle, until September the chief executive, Economic and Social Research Council and now the president and vice chancellor of the University of Leicester was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

David Tregar Ulph, a professor of economics and director of the Scottish Institute for Research in Economics at the University of St Andrews, received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire “for services to economics and social sciences.”

Ellen Frances Bennett, a senior research and teaching fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention, was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, as was professor Susan McVie, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, professor of quantitative criminology at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Applied Quantitative Methods Network in Scotland.

A number of other social scientists also received honors for applications of their skills, such as geographer Paul James Curran, vice chancellor of City University London, who was knighted both for his “transformational” university leadership and his “internationally significant research contributions” as a NASA scientist (and adviser to the European Space Agency) to the field of earth observation nd in particular to our understanding of the movement of carbon. “As Dean of Science at Southampton University,” his citation explains, “he led the academic turnaround of its Winchester School of Art. As Vice-Chancellor of Bournemouth University, he led it from the bottom quartile to become the UK’s top new university. As Vice-Chancellor of City, he is moving it into the top few per cent in the world. He is former Chair of the HEFCE Workforce Report and NERC’s Audit and Risk Committee and current Chair of both the Universities and Colleges Employers Association Board and the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Pay Review Body.”

Two other social and behavioral scientists were made Dame Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, Margaret Mcrae Whitehead for services to public health and Til Hilary Margaret Wykes for services to clinical psychology.

Whitehead, who heads the Department of Public Health and Policy at Liverpool University, “has made an outstanding contribution to our understanding of health inequalities, with a significant influence on public health internationally. She identified the principles of equity and health for the World Health Organisation, leading to the development of a typology of the determinants of health and actions to tackle health inequalities. Her seminal study of social policies and the pathways leading from lone motherhood to ill health further refined the analytical framework used in policymaking. She chaired the 2014 Due North inquiry into health equity for the north of England and wrote the best-selling book The Health Divide.”

Wykes, vice dean of Psychology and Systems Sciences and professor of Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation at King’s College London, “has substantially advanced understanding of approaches to rehabilitation and recovery for people with severe mental illness. She founded, and is Co-Director of, King’s Service User Research Enterprise, which is the first unit in the UK to focus on including the service user perspective by employing people who have experience of using mental health services. She also created the Mental Health Research Network, which delivered a dramatic increase in opportunities for service users to participate in mental health research. She is executive editor of the Journal of Mental Health.”

Eight social scientists, both academics and practitioners, were named Commanders of the Order of the British Empire:

Political scientist Robert Fredrick Behrens, chief executive of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, for services to higher education.

Roy Blatchford, director of the National Education Trust, for services to education.

Wendy Joan Carlin, professor of economics at University College London and member of the Expert Advisory Panel in the government’s Office for Budget Responsibility, for services to economics and public finance.

Economist John Coyne, lately vice-chancellor of the University of Derby, for services to higher education.

Linda Margaret McDowell, professor of human geography at the University of Oxford, for services to geography and higher education.

Karen Ann Mumford, professor of economics at the University of York, for services to economics and labor market diversity.

Linguist Susan Ann Price, lately vice-chancellor of Leeds Beckett University, for services to higher education.

Julia Teresa Selwyn, professor and director of The Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies at Bristol University, for services to adoption and children’s social care.

A number also were named Officers of the Order of the British Empire, including:

Economist William John Edmunds, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, for services to infectious disease control, particularly the Ebola crisis response in West Africa for which he used mathematical models to follow and predict the spread of the disease.

Alison Jean Petch, lately director of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Sciences, for services to social services in Scotland.

Nichola Jane Katharine Rumsey, professor of appearance psychology at the University of the West of England, for services to people affected by an altered appearance.