Associates

He has worked at senior levels for the Department for Education, the Home Office and the Ministry Of Justice; where he has led research teams, developed quality assurance schemes and advised senior colleagues on the effective monitoring and delivery of policy. Tony has a a PhD in Psychology from the University of Leeds and has authored or co-authored over 60 journal articles and books. He currently chairs a charity, the Reasons Why Foundation, is a Board member of the Centre for Evidence-Based Management. Tony has run evidence masterclasses for departments across all four UK administrations, as well as governments in Europe and South East Asia. Tony’s strong academic background and extensive experience in policy research underpins the standard delivered in all RTK outputs.

Miriam is an established member of the RTK team and has worked on a variety of projects including evidence reviews, evaluations and data analysis both as a senior researcher and as a project manager. Miriam is particularly passionate about utilising her knowledge and experience of working as a children and families social worker to a research context, both in terms of engaging research participants including children and offering a practitioner perspective. She uses this sector expertise where appropriate to ensure that research findings are summarised in a way that practitioners can access and apply key lessons. Miriam holds a First Class honours degree in Criminology and Social Policy, where she was also awarded the Vaughan Bevan memorial prize for academic excellence, and a Masters degree in Social Work (distinction) both from the University of Sheffield.

Linda is a highly experienced research and evaluation consultant with over 10 years’ experience of conducting mixed-method research and evaluation projects. She specialises in theory-based approaches to evaluation, particularly theory of change and realistic evaluation methodologies, and has extensive experience of conducting qualitative research with ‘seldom heard’ or other vulnerable groups. Linda has managed projects for a wide range of clients across the community and voluntary, health, government and private sectors, including Action for Children, Macmillan, Sainsbury’s Department of Health, Sainsbury’s, Office for Civil Society and various local authorities across the UK. Linda has a BA Hons in History from Girton College, Cambridge (1999) and gained a distinction in MSc in Social Anthropology from UCL (2007).

A former Director of the Science, Reference and Information Services at the British Library, searching grey literature is one of Alan’s specialist skills. Alan also launched the UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice at Queen Mary College, University in 2001. He has extensive experience of delivering lectures on search methodology to external clients and continues to maintain links with the Social Care Institute of Excellence and others. Alan designs and develops search strings and completes searches for all of our projects, his expertise ensures that these are rigorous and include all relevant literature.

Elaine is a social researcher with over ten years’ experience in applied public sector social research, working in the Home Office and the Department of Communities and Local Government. She has carried out extensive quantitative and qualitative research into community cohesion, race and faith, volunteering, civil renewal and refugee integration. She is experienced in developing quantitative research instruments, carrying out complex data analysis and also facilitating focus groups including those with hard to reach groups. Elaine has a PhD in Systems Science from City University CASS Business School London. Her thesis used Social Network Analysis to examine the effects of social networks on education. She currently teaches Systems Thinking and research methods to international postgraduate students at the Open University.

Carol brings together a wealth of experience from both local government and business management. Carol has a track record in delivering challenging change management programmes, successfully creating whole system change and ultimately improved life chances for children and families. She has experience of leading, developing and implementing Business/Service planning and Performance Management frameworks to improve business capacity, capability and evidence impact of services. Carol led on the introduction and implementation of Outcome Based Accountability in Children’s centres and has worked with the Department for Education (DfE) on developing a range of performance management measures for Payment by Results for Children’s Centres. Carol runs C A Salt Consultancy Ltd, providing strategic and operational support in services for children, young people, and families.

Edward is currently a programme manager at Restorative Solutions, running a national programme to build the capacity of prisons and probation to deliver restorative justice conferences – leading to better outcomes for victims and offenders. He worked on criminal justice system reform as a senior civil servant in the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, leading on issues such as victim and witness care, effective management of bail, virtual courts and youth custody. Before that he worked at the Cabinet Office on senior leadership development; and on supporting public administration reform in emerging democracies in South Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. Earlier in his career he worked as a consultant on urban regeneration; and as a manager in the voluntary sector, developing access to education and employment for people of minority ethnic origin. Edward is a senior visiting fellow at the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at Birkbeck, University of London; and a volunteer youth justice Referral Panel member.

Dr Parry has a PhD in Quantitative Social Science from the Institute of Education, University College London. He is an expert in statistical analysis, survey methods, database building and spreadsheet modelling. He is an advanced user of many computer packages, including MS Access & Excel, VBA, SQL, Stata, R and Mplus. He holds a Masters in Social Research Methods from the Methodology Institute, London School of Economics & Political Science. Dr Parry has previously taught statistical and survey methods, software skills for data analysis, critical thinking skills and the scientific method.

Matt has vast experience of research and evaluation methodology. He has a PhD entitled ‘Abuse and Violence Against Small Businesses’ and has published in high quality journals including the British Journal of Criminology, the International Review of Victimology, the Security Journal and The International Journal of Risk, Security and Crime Prevention. Matt has also been involved in a number of applied research projects and evaluations of national government programmes. His work spans a variety of areas in relation to crime prevention, commercial victimisation and organised crime and has included several national evaluations. He is a member of the Home Office Commercial Victimisation Study steering group, a Research Fellow of the Security Institute, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and he sits on the editorial board of the Security Journal.

Chris has lectured to postgraduate students in the Department of Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London for over twenty years. Organizations for which he has recently carried out research and provided advice include the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Legal Services Board. Chris is author of Statistical Methods for Organizational Research: Theory and Practice. His specialist areas of expertise include the assessment and selection of people in organizations and the predictors of job performance. He earned his PhD from University College London in 1986.

Rob has been involved for over 20 years in several areas of research and consultancy. His key areas of research interest include work and well-being, the psychological contract, work-nonwork relationships and ethnicity. In addition, he is very active in developing evidence-based practice in management, HR and organizational psychology. He is a founding member of the Center for Evidence-Based Management which through its teaching, training and dissemination activities aims to help managers make better decisions by adopting the principles of evidence-based practice. He is also Visiting Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry and the London School of Economics, a Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Business School and Honorary Fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies.

He is Director of Policy and Governance at the Association for the Conservation of Energy, University College London. Peter was Chief Executive of Salix Finance, DECC’s public sector low carbon finance vehicle. Peter set up Salix and secured £30m of start-up funding from DECC. Salix now manages £150m of energy efficiency projects in 120 public sector clients, a significant proportion of which involve heat and heat networks. Prior to that Peter set up the Carbon Trust and ran its Government Affairs department. He has also held a range of civil service posts including international energy policy, programme and research management and science policy. Peter has a PhD. in Crop Physiology from University College London, a first class honours degree in Biological Sciences, and is a fellow of both the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Society of Arts.

Emma has experience working with a range of organisations including health, social care, housing, voluntary and commercial organisations. She and has experience leading and coordinating research, data analysis, benchmarking and modelling projects, using a range of data sources. She works with a range of colleagues and clients, taking a methodological and consultative approach to produce high quality accessible and informative outputs.

Julian is currently a lecturer in public administration with the University of the West of Scotland. He has several years’ experience as a government social researcher in arms’-length bodies of the Ministry of Justice. He has conducted mixed methods research for HM Treasury, the Ministry of Justice, the Prisons & Probation Ombudsman, and the Victims’ Commissioner for England & Wales. Julian has a background in qualitative research methodologies, including qualitative, ethnographic, ethnomethodological and implementation studies research in the areas of criminal justice and labour markets. Julian has managed projects that draw upon interview, focus group, and survey data, and has a specialism in interactional analysis of organisational settings. Julian holds a BA Hons Media & Sociology and an MA Sociology, both awarded by Goldsmiths, University of London, and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Warwick.