Paul Crawshaw

Professor Paul Crawshaw is Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Law. He is responsible for the strategic leadership of a School with more than 300 staff, 5,000 students and a large portfolio of programmes at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In addition the School houses the English Language Centre and Social Futures Institute (SoFI).

As Assistant Dean (Research and Business Engagement) and Director of SoFI he led on a research portfolio encompassing social policy; criminology; sport and exercise; psychology; education and law. Under Paul's leadership, SoFI has been successful in securing significant external funding from a range of sources, including RCUK; European Commission, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Big Lottery. Professor Crawshaw has overall responsibility for School submissions to the Research Excellent Framework (REF).

Professor Crawshaw is an internationally recognised medical sociologist with particular interests in public health, risk and health governance. He has published widely in these areas in a range of international peer reviewed journals including Social Science and Medicine, Health, Risk and Society and Social Theory and Health. Paul’s current research focuses upon the politics of promoting behavioural change through methods such as social marketing and the issues this raises for understanding contemporary forms of health governance. He also continues to contribute to more critical debates regarding men’s health as an issue in health inequalities research.

He has a long history of leading and conducting evaluations of community based projects, with particular emphasis upon public health, including the Tees Health Action Zone, Sure Start programmes, Middlesbrough Healthy Living Centre and Single Regeneration Budget and continues to publish on the evaluation of complex interventions.

From 2008 and 2011 Professor Crawshaw edited the international peer reviewed journal, Critical Public Health, moving to Associate Editor until September 2011, having previously held this role between 2003 and 2008. He is also a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Men’s Health and Health, Risk and Society and a peer reviewer for numerous health social science journals including Social Science and Medicine, Sociology of Health and Illness and Health.

He is currently supervising a number of PhD students and is happy to discuss applications for postgraduate research in the areas of risk and social theory, critical perspectives on public health, complex interventions and health governance.

Professor Crawshaw is keen to collaborate with a range of partners in the public, private and third sectors and welcomes enquiries for contract research and consultancy as well as enterprise and workforce development activities.

He is Chair of Healthwatch Middlesbrough, the champion for users of health and social care, and is a trustee of various charities and third sector organisations including Catalyst; Middlesbrough Environment City; Together Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland Mind.