Professor John Hudson

Profile

Biography

John is Professor of Social Policy in the School and Academic Director of the University of York’s policy engagement unit The York Policy Engine.  His work focuses on theories of the policy making process and comparative social policy analysis, with specialisms in a range of policy fields and topics including inequality, poverty, well-being and the impacts of public attitudes on social policy.  He is a member of the University of York’s Cost of Living Research Group. 

John has worked at the University of York since 1998 and was previously Head of Social Policy Section (2009-14), Head of Department of Social Policy and Social Work (2017-22) and Interim Deputy Dean of the School for Business and Society (2022-23). He has served on the executive committees of the UK Social Policy Association (SPA), the East Asian Social Policy Research Network (EASP) and the UK Joint University Council for the Applied Social Sciences (JUC). 

Research

Research

John’s current research projects include:

• Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network (Y-PERN). Y-PERN is a novel Yorkshire and Humber wide network-based approach to inclusive and place-based academic policy engagement and research led by Yorkshire Universities and supported by a  £3.9 million Research England Development (RED) Fund award. 
• Local Government and the Cost of Living Emergency (LOCALE). Part of the University of York’s Cost of Living Research Group’s activity, and supported by the Research England Policy Support Fund, this project explores how local councils in the UK have responded to the rising cost of living.
• Profiling Public Spending on Children by Age and Policy Area Across the World (Too Little, Too Late). Working with colleagues at UNICEF, the Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy and the Learning for Well-Being Institute, this project maps public spending on children by age and area of policy in 84 countries.
• Criminal Justice and Political Economy (CAPE). This project examines the links between welfare regimes, varieties of capitalism and criminal justice in high-income democracies.

Past projects include: a cross-national comparative analysis of the impact of culture on the politics of welfare (ESRC funded); analysis of the historical evolution of public attitudes to welfare in the UK (Shelter funded); cross-national analyses of inequalities in child well-being and variations in child related public spending (UNICEF, OECD funded); and, global cities and welfare regimes (WUN funded).

Publications

Publications

John’s recent publications include:

Cost of Living Research Group (2023) Sticking Plasters and Systemic Solutions: Cost of Living Responses in the UK. York Policy Engine.

Dominic Richardson, David Harris, John Hudson and Sophie Mackinder (2023) Too Little, Too Late: An assessment of public spending on children by age in 84 countries. UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight Research Report: Florence, Italy. 

Dominic Richardson, David Harris, John Hudson and Sophie Mackinder (2023) Too Little, Too Late: An assessment of public spending on children by age in 84 countries [Research Brief]. UNICEF Innocenti Research Brief  

Kit Colliver, John Hudson and Neil Lunt (2023) ‘Local Authorities and the Cost of Living Emergency’, Cost of Living Research Group Policy Brief 

John Hudson (2023) ‘Teaching international and comparative policy analysis’ in Zoë Irving (Ed) Teaching Social Policy: International, Comparative and Global Perspectives. Edward Elgar.

John Hudson and Neil Lunt (2022). ‘The contested jurisdiction of Social Policy in UK universities since 1972’, Journal of Social Policy, 51(3), 487-503

Laura Bainbridge and John Hudson, ‘Policy Learning and Policy Transfer’ in Alcock, P., Haux, T., McCall, V. and May, M. (Eds) The Student's Companion to Social Policy. Wiley-Blackwell: London. pp436-441, 2022.

Teaching

Teaching

John is currently on research leave, so not involved in teaching this academic year, but he has delivered teaching across a wide range of topics, particularly in the fields of policy analysis, comparative social policy analysis and inequality, poverty and well-being.