Photo: James Wilsdon

James Wilsdon is a transdisciplinary metascientist, who works on the governance and management of science and research, and the relationship between evidence and decision-making. In 2023, James joined UCL as Professor of Research Policy, from where he directs the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), which he co-founded in 2019 with a mission to accelerate transformative research on research systems, cultures and decision-making. RoRI now has 55 partners across 21 countries, who between them invest over US$30 billion per year in research and innovation.

Since the late-1990s, as a researcher, writer, government adviser and campaigner, James has advanced concepts such as upstream public engagement, science diplomacy, responsible metrics and responsible research assessment. James has worked at the heart of science and research policy in the UK, Europe and internationally. In addition to academic posts at the universities of Sheffield, Sussex and Lancaster, he has held senior roles in think tanks, NGOs and as director of science policy for the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences. In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), and in 2022, of the International Science Council (FISC).

In 2014, James was asked to chair an independent UK government review of research metrics, published as The Metric Tide. He subsequently chaired a European Commission expert group on Next Generation Metrics, and in 2022, with Stephen Curry and Elizabeth Gadd, revisited these debates again in Harnessing the Metric Tide. At RoRI, he is now co-leading the AGORRA project (A Global Observatory on Responsible Research Assessment) which is working with research funding and evaluation agencies from 14 countries on evolving models and methods of national research assessment. (e: j.wilsdon@ucl.ac.uk; BlueSky: @jameswilsdon.bsky.social