Honorary appointments
IER Honorary Associations
Graham Attwell- Honorary Associate Professor
Graham Attwell is a specialist in Technology-enhanced teaching and learning and web-based learning environment development. He is involved in research and development into pedagogies for Technology Enhanced Learning, recognition of informal learning, training of teachers and trainers and development of open source software for education and Open Educational Resources. His recent work has focused on research and development of new applications and approaches to e-Portfolios and Personal Learning Environments and use of social software for learning and knowledge development. He is experienced in the use of ICT for e-Learning and in developing, delivering and moderating e-learning programmes for teachers and trainers in initial training and for professional development. His company, Pontydysgu, has organised a series of face-to-face and on-line workshops for teachers in producing Open Education resources. He is a consultant to OECD and UNESCO on open content development and and has acted as a consultant to the European Centre for Vocational Education and Training (CEDEFOP) on virtual communities and knowledge harvesting. He has extensive experience of national project evaluation and national and international programme evaluation in relation to innovations in learning, including use of ICT to support learning. He is currently working with the support team for the JISC Emerge and CREATE programmes. His popular edublog - the Wales Wide Web.
Dr Līga Baltiņa - Honorary Professor
Līga Baltiņa is the Head of the Labour Market and Skills Research unit at Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini. She has more than 15 years of experience in project and quality management, much of this in the field of EU employment, regional development, labour market and skills related projects. Since 2012, she has been managing several framework contracts with EU institutions, providing consultancy on EU social and regional development policies, supporting and facilitating workshops, seminars, and events. She holds a Doctorate Degree in Management Science. In October 2020, she graduated from the Executive MBA programme at Université Cote D’Azur, IAE Nice in France. She has a particular interest in exploring innovation and skills management practices employed by various industries (including practices linked to labour market intelligence, skills governance, digital transformation, knowledge management, innovation management, and building enabling ecosystems). Since 2000, she has been involved in managing EU-funded projects at national and EU levels, and in coordinating international project teams and networks of experts. She has been coordinating several projects and comparative studies related to skills, skills governance and apprenticeships, including three four-year framework contracts with Cedefop on ‘the Provision of data analysis and intelligence on skills and labour markets’. Līga has over ten years of experience in managing /coordinating international research contracts that cover EU-27 Member States, neighbouring and other countries. As coordinator of European research contracts, she has dealt with providing both qualitative and quantitative information gathered through a combination of methodologies and sources.
Dr Sally-Anne Barnes - Honorary Reader
Sally-Anne Barnes is a lecturer at the University of Leicester School of Business in the Department of Work, Employment, Management and Organisations. With an established track record in research, she has worked on and successfully managed a number of projects in the careers field for over 20 years. Her international research projects have investigated career development, the transformation of careers and the labour market, plus how individuals engage with lifelong guidance and learning. She has particular expertise in labour market data and its technical applications, focusing on career development and the use of ICT to support practitioners. She has undertaken research for the UK Government, sector bodies, charities and international organisations (such as the EC, OECD, CEDEFOP), the findings of which have been used to inform policy and practice. For more information, see Sally-Anne's ULSB profile page.
Neil Bachelor - Honorary Professorial Fellow
Neil is the founder and director of Omnifolio C.I.C., a not-for-profit online profiling and job-matching service. He is also an information consultant for the Gatsby Foundation and the data architect for Innovate UK’s Workforce Foresighting Hub. He has previously worked for SHL on the design and implementation of their psychometric assessment products. In addition, he has designed bespoke assessment tools for large employers including The U.S. Federal Government, BT and Centrica to measure employee understanding and situational judgment. He is currently part of the IER team working with the Department for Education to design and develop a UK Standard Skills Classification.
Rhys Davies - Honorary Associate Professor
Based at Cardiff University, Rhys is Co-Director of the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD), a national interdisciplinary social science research institute. Rhys is an applied labour economist who has undertaken research on a variety of issues related to employment and the labour market. His research has explored issues related to the gender pay gap, workplace accidents and work-related ill-health, the early careers of graduates, job quality and job satisfaction, and the determinants of union membership. He is currently the academic lead for the Skills and Employability research programme being undertaken by Administrative Data Research Wales. This work focuses on the transitions made by young people following their completion of compulsory education, their participation in post-compulsory education and training, and the role of careers guidance in supporting these transitions.
See Rhys's Cardiff webpage for more information.
Professor Derek Bosworth - Honorary Professorial Fellow
Derek Bosworth was also an Emeritus Professor at UMIST (now the University of Manchester), Senior Research Associate at St. Peter’s College, Oxford and Professorial Fellow at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. Until recently, he was also an Honorary Professor at Wuhan University of Technology. He has worked with IER and its predecessors for over thirty years. He started work as a researcher at the University of Warwick, undertaking workforce projections for the then Engineering Industry Training Board, and has continued to take an interest in issues relating to skills and employment throughout his career. He has worked extensively on both theoretical and empirical labour supply and demand models, as well as analysing their implications for skill shortages, education and training.
Claire Callender - Honorary Professor
Claire Callender (BSc, PhD) is Professor of Higher Education Policy at UCL Institute of Education (IoE) and Professor of Higher Education Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. At UCL, she is Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Higher Education, an international research centre funded by the ESRC.
Claire’s research and writing focus on higher education student finances and its consequences. She has contributed to some of the most significant UK inquiries into student funding, and presented evidence to various Parliamentary Select Committees. She was a New Century Fulbright Scholar at the Harvard School of Education from 2007-2008. In 2017, she was awarded an OBE for services to higher education.
She is currently conducting research on student loan debt, examining its influences on graduates’ post-graduation behaviour and life choices with colleagues from the University of Michigan and the University of Twente.
Eamonn Davern - Honorary Professorial Fellow
Mr. Davern is an Independent Employment Services Expert. He has specialized in the comparative study of International Employment and Welfare systems and has extensive experience of working on EU and other international Projects including Technical Assistance Programmes to reform Public Employment Services (PES) in a number of countries.
Since 2017 he has worked as a freelance expert leading a number of projects including; EU Technical Assistance for the reform of PES in Cyprus the Czech Republic, and Lithuania, an ESF Transnational Employment Platform project to improve integration systems for LTU people, improvements to the Youth Guarantee ,ILO Projects for reform of the PES in Uzbekistan, Armenia and Ethiopia, the establishment of Job Centres in Anglophone African countries, and reform of the PES in Ghana.
Eamonn has written on many PES related subjects including published studies on; reform of Performance Measurement in UK PES, European PES support for the promotion of gender equality, Job Carving, developing PES partnerships, and a study of PES in African and Middle Eastern countries.
Professor Paul Edwards - Honorary Professor
Paul Edwards, FBA is Emeritus Professor of Employment Relations at Birmingham Business School. A former Director of the Industrial Relations Research Unit at Warwick, his research interests include employment relations in small firms and the impact of employment legislation within the firm. He has a particular interest in case study methods.
Professor Peter Fairbrother - Honorary Professor
Peter Fairbrother is Professor of Management and Labour, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, and Member of the Better Work and Well-being Research Cluster, University of Tasmania. He is an Affiliated Professor at HEC, Montréal. He is a lead member of the International Partnership, ‘Institutional Experimentation for Better work’, involving 20 partner research centres and 180 researchers. He is known for his work on trade union, organisation, capacity, and renewal. His longstanding research focus is on work and employment, addressing the public services, and tracing out the restructuring of the modern state. He is an expert on the political economy of regional change and development, focusing on the implications for workers and their capacities in relation to regional governance. Building on an extended case-study approach, he has undertaken research focusing on the interplay between actors’ experience and structural complexity. His work has been funded by national research councils from Australia, Canada and the UK, as well as EU research funding sources, including social dialogue organisations across Europe.
Natalie Fisher - Honorary Associate Professor
Natalie has spent the last twelve years supporting the Armed Forces Community working initially as a psychologist for the MoD and more recently as an Occupational Psychologist leading military personnel research for QinetiQ. Her work has ranged from direct support including conducting psychological assessments for arduous roles to leading large-scale, applied research studies to enhance organisation performance. Recent research includes: Self-Employment and the Armed Forces Community http://www.fim-trust.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/20181008-Self-employment-and-the-Armed-Forces-FINAL.pdf and Military Spousal/Partner Employment: Identifying the Barriers and Support Required https://aff.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Employment-Research-report-ONLINE-COPY.pdf. Her work has been praised by MOD for the impact it has had on Defence decision making. Natalie is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow with the British Psychological Society, and a Registered Psychologist (Occupational) with the Health and Care Professions Council.
Professor Anne Green - Honorary Professor
Anne Green is Professor of Regional Economic Development at City-REDI (Regional Economic Development Institute), Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham. She was formerly a long-standing member of staff at IER. A geographer by background, her research focuses on geographical aspects of employment change, non-employment, local skills strategies, inclusive growth, regional and urban economic development, migration, and policy assessment and evaluation. Her research has been funded by a wide range of organisations, including government departments and agencies (including the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Home Office [to inform the Migration Advisory Committee) and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills), the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the ESRC and the OECD. Recent research includes an ESRC research project on Harnessing Growth Sectors for Poverty Reduction – including papers on data analysis on employment change, wages and poverty, employment entry, supporting progression in work, improving job quality and the role for policy; reports for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on inclusive growth, improving progression from low-paid jobs at city level and on how cities can connect people in poverty to jobs; and for the OECD on skills for competitiveness and employment and skills strategies in England.
See Anne’s Birmingham webpage for more information.
Dr Deirdre Hughes - Honorary Associate Professor
Deirdre Hughes OBE specialises in lifelong guidance policies, research and practice at an international, national and regional level. She is a UK expert in lifelong guidance (European Centre for the Development of Vocational Education, 2017 – present) and International Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) national correspondent. Deirdre is currently advising the Department for Economy, Northern Ireland on the national career guidance delivery model (2022). She also co-developed a new 5-year vision and Careers Strategy in Wales (2021), working closely with Careers Wales and the Welsh Government having previously worked with the Scottish Government on its national Careers Strategy (2020). In England, she is currently Chair of the formal review of the matrix Standard, owned by the Department for Education (DfE) and managed by The Growth Company. Deirdre is co-founder of CareerChat, a national Prize Finalist in the NESTA/DfE Career Tech Challenge (2020-2021), working on innovation in the design and development of a careers chatbot, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning – CiCi. Her recent research includes assessing the implementation and effectives of career-related learning in primary schools in the Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire areas. She is a consultant to the OECD on ‘career readiness’ in post-primary schooling. Earlier she was an Associate Fellow and Principal Researcher at the University of Warwick, Institute for Employment Research (2008-2019). She was also Co-Editor of the British Journal for Guidance and Counselling: International Symposium Series (2015- 2021). Deirdre is a prolific writer, highly experienced researcher, and senior policy adviser. She hosts a highly successful free webinar series on a wide range of career development, education, employment and skills-related topics.
Anne Humbert - Honorary Professor
Professor Anne Laure Humbert, PhD, is a researcher at the University of Gothenburg. Anne is very experienced in gender equality research at national, EU and international level, policy analysis and assessment as well as gender statistics. She specialises in applying quantitative methods to comparative social and economic analysis, particularly in relation to work and organisations, entrepreneurship, and work-life balance. Anne is a regular public speaker on gender equality and intersectionality, and she enjoys the opportunity to make connections between theory, policy and practice.
Over the years, she has built a significant body of work around the development of gender-related composite indicators. This includes work on the development of the Gender Equality Index for the European Institute for Gender Equality, the Gender Diversity Index for research teams under the Horizon 2020 funded project GEDII, and the technical proposal for the update of the Gender Inequality Index for UNDP and UN Women. Anne has recently worked with the World Bank on the development of a Gender and Mobility Index and the European Commission on a Gender Equality in Research and Innovation Index. She is now contributing to the development of a local level Gender Equality Index in the UK, led by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London.
Anne also has a significant track record of working on gender structural change in organisations, with recent Horizon 2020 projects looking at implementing gender equality plans in universities across Europe (GEARING-Roles); assessing the feasibility of an award/certification system for gender equality in Europe (CASPER); and measuring and addressing gender-based violence in higher education in Europe (UniSAFE, GenderSAFE).
Her recent methodological work has focused on the applications of intersectional multilevel modelling (MAIHDA: Multilevel analysis of individual heterogeneity and discriminatory accuracy) to various aspects of social and economic outcomes of inequalities, and she is currently writing a book on the topic based on her experience of training other researchers on how to use this new approach to intersectional quantitative analysis.
Professor Irena Grugulis - Honorary Professor
Irena Grugulis PhD FAcSS FCIPD is the Professor of Work and Skills at Leeds University and Associate Fellow of SKOPE (Oxford). She was an ESRC/AIM Fellow and has been funded by the ESRC, EPSRC and EU. She has undertaken policy work and was on the UKCES Academic Expert Panel. She was Editor in Chief of Work, Employment and Society.
See Irena's Leeds webpage for more information
Professor Ewart Keep - Honorary Professor
Ewart Keep is emeritus chair in education, training and skills at the Department of Education, Oxford University. His research interests include the links between skills demand, supply and utilisation, how work organisation and job design impact on skills utilisation, and how AI and digitalisation is changing demand for skills.
Dr Erika Kispeter - Honorary Research Fellow
Erika Kispeter is a Research Fellow at the ESRC Centre for Care, based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her current research focuses on the changing social care workforce in the UK, exploring, among other topics, the organisation of paid care work; care worker recruitment and working conditions; as well as efforts to improve job and service quality in social care. Erika has a background in Gender Studies and Sociology. She has conducted applied research on gender, work and employment that is relevant to both academia and public policy. She has investigated graduate careers, and the impact of Covid-19 on the education and childcare workforce and gender equality at the intersection of work and care in the UK and in a European comparative perspective. She has led research projects focusing on digital skills in the UK labour market and presented her research on workforce digital skills to the All- Party Parliamentary Group on Digital Skills.
See Erika’s LSHTM webpage for more information.
Dr Angela Knox - Honorary Associate Professor
Angela Knox is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations at the University of Sydney Business School. Her research focuses on job quality, precarious work, skills and employment regulation. Her research has been published in numerous top-tier journals, including: Work, Employment and Society, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Journal, Gender, Work and Organisation and Journal of Industrial Relations. She has also co-edited (with Chris Warhurst) a book on Job Quality in Australia, published by Federation Press. Angela is currently engaged in national and international collaborative research projects in the fields of precarious work, bullying, skills and migration and job quality.
Angela regularly engages with industry, Government and unions and contributes to public debate regarding work and employment. She has provided expert evidence to Australia's Federal Government Senate Inquiry and she is frequently contacted for expert comment by the television, radio and print media.
Dr Ilias Livanos - Honorary Associate Professor
Ilias is a skills and labour market expert, working at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP). Ilias is an economist by training, with a master’s degree in industrial relations, and a PhD in employment research, both from the University of Warwick. Ilias has been IER’s first ever doctoral student and a Research Fellow during the period 2006-2012. His expertise is in labour economics, education economics, and industrial relations. Ilias blends quantitative and qualitative techniques and skills while he specialises in using large scale datasets, such as the European labour force survey. Ilias has published articles in various top-ranking journals including Industrial Relations: a Journal of Economy and Society, Regional Studies, Industrial and Economic Democracy, Journal of Economic Studies, Education Economics, Applied Economics Letters, Higher Education, the International Journal of Manpower, Personnel Review, and the Journal of Labour Research. Within Cedefop, he leads flagship projects of the organisation, such as the Skills Forecast and the European skills index.
Dr Daria Luchinskaya - Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Daria Luchi
nskaya Lecturer at the Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde,
Dr Daria Luchinskaya is a Lecturer at the Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde. Her research focuses on graduate transitions to employment, skill utilisation and job upgrading, and she teaches across a range of areas related to her research work in Human Resource Management, organisational behaviour and research methods courses.
Daria was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick from 2015 to 2019, and was an Early Career Fellow of the Warwick Institute of Advanced Study. Between 2016 and 2018 she was on secondment as a Research Associate at Wales Public Services 2025 in Cardiff.
At the IER, Daria worked on a number of projects related to employment and the labour market, including adults’ participation in training, wider benefits of higher education, and diversity in the British screen industries. During her time at Wales Public Services 2025, she worked on public service financing, focusing on healthcare spend in Wales.
Dr Jörg Markowitsch - Honorary Associate Professor
Jörg Markowitsch is an Expert in Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Senior Partner at 3s Research & Consulting in Vienna which he founded in 2001. He is experienced Team Leader in international research and development projects in the area of education and labour markets, and policy advisor on national and EU-Level for senior officials and policy makers. He has been member in several EU Expert and Working Groups and in international research associations and scientific boards. Jörg has recently coordinated various large comparative research projects on apprenticeships, adult learning and the Future of VET in Europe for the ILO, Cedefop and the European Commission.
Dr Chris Mathieu - Honorary Associate Professor
Chris Mathieu is Associate Professor of the Sociology of Work and Organisations, Department of Sociology, Lund University. From 2015-2018 he was coordinator (PI) of the Horizon 2020 project QuInnE–Quality of jobs and innovation generated employment outcomes. He currently works on the Horizon 2020 projects Beyond 4.0 (as a member of the University of Warwick team) and DiHeco–Digital Healthcare ECOsystems. He has published in volumes with Cambridge University Press, Routledge, Springer and is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Job Quality. He is also deputy-chair of the European Sociological Association’s research network on the Sociology of the Arts (RN02).
Dr Oscar Molina Romo - Honorary Associate Professor
Oscar Molina is associate professor at the Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), researcher at Centre d’Estudis Sociològics sobre la Vida Quotidiana i el Treball (QUIT) and Director of the Institute for Labour Studies (IET). He holds a degree in Economics at Pompeu Fabra University 1998 and a PhD in Social and Political Science at the European University Institute (EUI-Florence). Before joining UAB was government of Ireland post-doctoral researcher at the Industrial Relations and Human Resources Group, University College Dublin (2005-2007) and ICREA Researcher at QUIT. His main research interests are the study of industrial relations and collective bargaining from a comparative perspective; trade unions and neo-corporatism, social pacts and concertation; political economy of southern Europe and regional employment policies.
His research focuses on the comparative analysis of industrial relations and collective bargaining, trade unions, labour markets and comparative political economy. He has worked as external collaborator for the ILO on several projects and coordinates Eurofound’s national correspondent team in Spain. He is member of the International Advisory Board of the European Journal of Industrial Relations and the Editorial Committee of Transfer: European Review of Labor and Research. Moreover, he is also member of the executive committee of ILERA, the International Labor and Employment Relations Association.
Dr Rafael Novella - Honorary Associate Professor
Rafael Novella is an applied economist interested in public policy and labour and development economics. His main research and professional interests are at the intersection of labour and development economics and public policy, particularly in the design and evaluation of policy interventions related to skills formation, TVET programmes, and other active labour market policies. He works as an independent consultant and holds research affiliations with University College London (UCL) and the University of Oxford (Oxford Department of International Development \ Young Lives and the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organizational Performance – SKOPE).
Rafael has extensive working experience in international organizations (at the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank), consultancy firms, academia, and public sector institutions. His research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals and as a book, book chapters, and technical reports. His work has been developed across a vast number of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Middle East. Rafael holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Essex.
Personal webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/rafaelnovella/
Prof Jesús Otero - Honorary Professor
Jesús Otero, an economist with a PhD in Economics from Warwick University, UK, is currently a Professor of Economics at Universidad del Rosario, Colombia. His research encompasses applied econometrics, time series modelling and forecasting, and labour studies. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed papers in internationally recognised journals. His contributions can be found in publications such as Energy Economics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.
Throughout his academic career, Jesús has held several visiting positions at prestigious institutions worldwide. Notably, he has frequently visited the Economics Department and the Institute for Employment Research (IER) at the University of Warwick, UK. Other positions include the Economics Department at Boston College, USA; the Economics Department at the University of Zurich UZH, Switzerland; the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) at the United Nations University, Finland; the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, Austria; the Economics Department at CIDE, Mexico; the School of Economics and Finance at QUT, Australia; and Macquarie Business School at the University of Macquarie, Australia.
Jesús has leveraged his econometrics expertise in collaborations with government and industry to tackle real-world challenges. For nearly 15 years, he served as an External Consultant to Colombia's National Department of Planning, analysing, developing, and evaluating time-series econometric models to forecast key macroeconomic variables including labour market indicators, aiding evidence-based policymaking. Recently, as an External Consultant to Cenit, a subsidiary of Ecopetrol, Jesús co-developed an econometric dashboard to forecast regional fuel consumption in Colombia. These roles have enabled Jesús to bridge academic research with practical applications, fostering innovation and collaboration across academia, government, and industry.
In the context of teaching and learning, Jesús has designed and implemented courses in econometrics at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Additionally, he has developed and taught an undergraduate course on research tools in applied economics and finance, providing students with the necessary skills to use specialised software for data analysis and to create papers and presentations. His pedagogical approach involves fostering critical thinking, engaging students with real-world applications, and incorporating innovative teaching methods.
Dr Sudipa Sarkar - Honorary Associate Professor
Sudipa is an Assistant Professor in Economics at National Law School of India University, Bangalore teaching at the Master's Programme in Public Policy of the University. Sudipa’s research interests are in the broad areas of Labour and Development Economics. In particular, her research focuses on future of work and social inequality. Her research has been published in several peer reviewed international journals including Research Policy and World Development.
Sudipa was a Research Fellow and later Senior Research Fellow (Assistant Professor) at Institute for Employment Research (IER), University of Warwick from 2017 to 2022. During her time at Warwick she worked on a number of projects related to future of work, job quality, skill building, gender and ethnicity. She has also co-supervised PhD students, supervised MSc dissertations, tutored UG students in IER and Warwick Economics department.
Dr Erez Yerushalmi - Honorary Reader
Dr. Erez Yerushalmi is a Senior Lecturer of Economics and Business in the Business School at Birmingham City University (BCU). He was formerly a Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Research (IER) from 2012 to 2017. His work focused on development economic issues such as Georgia, CEDEFOP, UNESCO, LMI4All and others.
Erez specialises in Applied Policy Analysis using Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling, econometric forecasting, and other complex quantitative methods. He has over 15 years of professional experience in economic research and consulting and 4 years in project management. Prior to working within academia, he worked for five years in the private sector as an economist in various international consulting firms. (For more info, see Erez’s Birmingham City University profile).