Dr. Ben Lamb's mission is improve social integration policy through his research into representations of marginalised communities within the media, wider culture, and the arts.

He is a member of the Institute for Collective Place Leadership and sits within the Empowered and Inclusive Communities team. Here his research and impact addresses disadvantage and enables opportunity  for all members of society to enhance community cohesion, wellbeing, and belonging at home, at work, and in the community.

Lamb is the world’s leading expert on British television crime drama, having published the definitive academic work, You’re Nicked: Investigating British Television Police Series, for Manchester University Press. He now ventures into US cop drama with his most recent book,The Wire: A Cultural History.

As a senior lecturer in media studies and English studies and creative writing course leader Lamb has won awards for his teaching across English, History, Media, and criminology degrees. As a cultural theorist specializing in television studies, his published research examines modes of realism within different television production systems, genre theory, ideology, gender politics, and representations of crime and social class.

He is also the producer of award winning films Rewinding the Welfare State: A Social History of the North East on Film and In the Veins: Coalming Communities, supported by the Yorkshire and North East Film Archive. Funders for these projects have included the Heritage Lottery Fund, AHRC, British Academy, and BFI. What makes Lamb's works distinctive is how he co-produces films alongside members of the public whose experiences of social issues inform the development, tone and structure of the final films. This ensures an authentic North Yorkshire and Teesside perspective of community, identity, history and place are regularly exported to thousands of people across the country and rest of the world

Ben is forever devising studies that combine cultural theory with the social sciences to develop methodological frameworks that can impact policy that ensures

• Rebuilding the region should be grounded in the region through the gathering of insights on the lived experiences of people within the region.
• The region should be empowered to develop and deliver evidence-based solutions.
• Partnership and collaboration are central to developing a shared vision and codesigning and coproducing interventions and solutions.

As a cultural theorist who specialises in television studies his published research has examined modes of realism within different television production systems, genre theory, ideology, gender politics, feminism, and social class.

In terms of impact he also works closely with members of the public, community organisations, heritage partners and archives to co-produce films on placemaking and identity to encourage audience debate and policy changes

Ben has received and accessed funding from the National Heritage Fund, BFI film Hub North, Arts and Humanities and Research Council, Being Human Festival, and British Academy to co-produce historical films with members of the public comprising entirely of footage stored at the Yorkshire Film Archive and North East Film Archive.

These award winning films on topics that vary from the history of welfare state provision, coalmining communities, and lung disease Ben has collaborated with a variety of partners including Middlesbrough Council, Citizens Advice, and NHS trusts to not only distribute screenings but also devise new policies following debates each film instigates with their service users. Such events have also impacted how arts and heritage centre programme screenings and discussion events. His community curator model of co-producing films with archives and members of the public is a unique and dynamic means of contributing to knowledge in placemaking and identity.

The research focus of all these projects is to

• Support regions undergoing significant transition and transformation to develop shared, inclusive and prosperous futures.
• Bring together interdisciplinary insights and expertise from the arts, humanities, social science, and business to deliver transformational action-orientated research.
• Work with communities, businesses, and policymakers.

Ben is always looking to supervise PhD projects on television history, television genre, and representations of class, gender, and crime.

He is also keen to supervise students who are interested in combining social sciences with the arts. His recently graduated PhD student produced a thesis entitled 'Transforming lives and place in Middlesbrough through creative activity at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art'.

His current PhD student projects range from subjects entitled 'Speculation, Ideology and Influence in Cyberpunk Science Fiction' to 'A mixed methods study to explore the effect of occupational stress upon risky behaviours, including alcohol and drug use, and personal mental health in paramedic students and early career pre-hospital clinicans, in the North of England'.

Ben Lamb is an associate editor of the international journal Critical Studies in Television

Ben regularly works with The North East Film Archive, Yorkshire Film Archive, AHRC, British Academy, Heritage Lottery Fund, and BFI to ensure his research intersts on the historical representation of social class and crime impact members of the public, charitable organisations, the heritage sector, state services, arts centres, the creative industries, archives and wider society in deep and meaningful ways.  Regularly it has been demonstrated that providing regional film heritage in such vivid means is an effective method for learning from the past to improve the socio-economic trajectory of deindustrialised communities across the north and beyond

Lamb also regularly provides consultancy to arts projects, the Cleveland Police and Crime Commisioner and employability initiatives given his additional skillset in social sciences qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Ben is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has been teaching at University level for many years. He delivers modules on all things cultural including theatre, literature, film, television, media practices, texts, and audiences. Often underpinned by theories and research methods derived from history, social science, criminology and discourse analysis means that students really do gain a broad yet focused oversight of ongoing academic developments.

But don't take Ben's word for it. In 2018 he was thrilled to receive the University's coveted Fantastic Feedback Star Award. Here his students, the students' union and pro vice chancellorship commended the quality, speed, and innovation underpinning the constructive feedback he delivers all students when it comes to setting and marking assessments. Particularly when feeding back on creative outputs, events, projects, work placements, presentations, reports, essays, tutorials, and classroom work.