Royce Turner

Royce Turner is a policy analyst who has led well-over 40 research projects for UK central government departments, local authorities, various NHS bodies, government agencies such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, voluntary and community sector organisations, and European Union directorates, in three key areas: economic regeneration, modernisation, and the promotion of competitiveness; good Relations, marginalised groups; and Third Sector organisations and social interventions.

His research agenda has been responsive to changing needs. His work on economic regeneration focused initially, for example, on evaluating the outcomes of regeneration policies in areas undergoing major economic restructuring, and on examining how companies had modernised in order to meet new challenges, progressing more recently to examine the impact of skilled labour, and the impact of arts and culture, on economic competitiveness.

Royce Turner has also conducted major pioneering work on Good Relations, developing a new framework to facilitate social measurement for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and, in related work, has analysed the labour market and societal position of marginalised groups such as Gypsies and Travellers, teenage parents, disengaged men, migrants, and older people, and designed policies to enhance those positions for implementation by local authorities and government agencies.

He has worked with numerous organisations in the Third Sector, assisting them in the design, implementation, and evaluation of their interventions, which are becoming an increasingly important element in economic and social policy overall. Examples of this are his work with Age UK on their Fit for the Future health and well-being programme, and his work with the Consortium of South Yorkshire Councils for Voluntary Service on community regeneration initiatives developed under their Pioneer Towns programme.

Royce Turner has extensive knowledge of organisational and governmental structures, gained from working in industry at the then British Steel Corporation, in university research centres, and from being a director of an independent research company which worked on a day-to-day basis with policy makers at different levels of government: local, devolved, central, and European. This experience is underpinned by his academic studies – he has a BA (Hons) from the University of Sheffield in Politics, and MA (Econ) from the University of Manchester in Public Policy and Administration, and a PhD from the University of Liverpool which focused on evaluating the outcome of economic regeneration policy in Britain’s former coalfields.