Wednesday 11 November, 4pm – 6pm, Heart of the Campus room .03
Prof. David Walker is head of policy for the Academy of Social Sciences www.acss.org.uk and was for seven years council member of the ESRC, where he chaired the methods and infrastructure committee. He chairs the governing board for Understanding Society, the University of Essex-based cohort study.
After a career in journalism with the Economist, The Times and the Independent, where he was chief leader writer, David moved to the Guardian where he was founder editor of Guardian Public – and remains a contributing editor. He then moved to be managing director, communications and public reporting at the UK Government’s Audit Commission.
With Polly Toynbee he is the author of Cameron’s Coup, published by Faber earlier this year. Together they wrote The Verdict and Unjust Rewards. David’s other books include Sources Close to the Prime Minister (with Peter Hennessy) and Media Made in California (with Jeremy Tunstall).
2015 sees the 50th anniversary of the UK’s social science funder, the Economic & Social Research Council. In his new book, Exaggerated Claims? to be published in December, David examines the research council’s original purposes – intimately connected with 1960s’ institutional modernisation – and its subsequent history as the principal provider of funds for academic work in the social science. Was it ‘captured’ by academic interests or did it become the state’s agency for controlling social science knowledge? What would have happened if the Thatcher government had succeeded in abolishing it?
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