Professor Justin Waring

Justin is Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities, providing strategic leadership across the School’s six academic departments. He also contributes to university-wide initiatives in areas such as health and care research, civic engagement, and people and culture.

Justin is an accomplished university leader, having held leadership positions at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham; Director of the NIHR BRACE Rapid Evaluation Centre; Associate Dean for Research at Nottingham University Business School; and Implementation Lead for NIHR Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands. He was the Founding Director of the Centre for Health Innovation, Leadership and Learning, at the University of Nottingham. 

Justin is a distinguished medical sociologist whose research deals with the changing organisation and governance of health care services. His work is defined by a commitment to inter-disciplinary scholarship, especially through bringing together ideas and debates found across social and policy sciences, health sciences, and business and management. He has published extensively in world leading journals that reflect his interdisciplinary approach, such as Social Science and Medicine, Public Administration, Organization Studies, and BMJ Quality and Safety.

Justin completed a BA(Hons) in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Liverpool, followed by a MSc in Healthcare Policy and Management at the University of Birmingham, and a PhD in Sociology at the University of Nottingham that focused the governance of medical mistakes. He has held visiting positions at University of Manchester, University of Gothenburg, and University of Cambridge. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Academy of Social Sciences.

Justin’s research is defined by a commitment to developing novel analytical connections across disciplinary boundaries to better understand and develop innovative solutions to the complex problems facing public (health care) services. This has involved bringing together different branches of social, political and organisational theory to ask critical questions about the implementation of strategic change in health care services, including the introduction of new organisational forms, technologies, professional roles, and regulatory arrangements.

His major intellectual contributions relate to contemporary debates on health care professionalism, especially the role of elites in leading change; applying and extending Foucauldian theories of governmentality and pastoral power to understand contemporary public governance; and integrating the concepts of political action within decentred theories of public governance. He has published over 150 journal articles and authored 6 monographs.

Justin’s research is guided by his commitment to undertake research that can inform on-going reforms and improvements in public services. He has received more than £35m in research funding and led research programmes across an extensive range reform agendas, including:

• Patient safety and quality improvement
• Public-private partnerships
• Knowledge management and organisational learning
• Technological innovation
• Leadership development
• Major system change
• Workforce innovations

Justin has also held leadership roles in major research collaborations, including NIHR ARC East Midlands, NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Research Collaboration and NIHR BRACE Rapid Evaluation Centre. He has also held personal fellowships including an ESRC First Grant (2008-10), a Health Foundation Improvement Science Fellowship (2013-2016), and a THIS Institute Fellowship (2022-23).

Justin has previously taught across sociology, social policy, public policy, business & management, health policy & management, and on programmes for health and medicine

• Waring, J. and Martin, G. (in press) Muscling in and making space: ‘demonstrable claims’ and ‘jurisdictional clipping’ in the reconfiguration of professional jurisdictions Sociology of Health and Illness, (in press)
• Waring, J., Bishop, S., Clarke, J. and Roe, B. (2023) ‘Becoming active in the micro-politics of healthcare organisation: the identity work and political activation of doctors, nurses and managers’, Social Science and Medicine, 333
• Bevir, M. and Waring, J, (2020) Decentring Health and Care Networks, London: Palgrave
• Waring, J. and Crompton, A. (2019) ‘The struggles for (and of) network management: and ethnographic study of non-dominant policy actors in the English healthcare system’ Public Management Review
•  Waring, J. and Latif, A. (2018) ‘Of Shepherds, Sheep and Sheepdogs: governing the adherent self through complementary and competing pastorates’ Sociology, vol.52(5), pp.1069-86
• Waring, J. (2015) ‘Mapping the public sector diaspora: understanding inter-sectoral cultural hybridity in the English Healthcare system’ Public Administration93(2), pp.345-62.
• Waring, J., Currie, G. and Bishop, S. (2013) ‘A contingent approach to the organization and management of PPPs: a comparative analysis of healthcare PPPs’ Public Administration Review, vol.73(2), pp.313-26.
• Waring, J. and Currie, G. (2009) ‘Managing expert knowledge: organizational challenges and managerial futures for the UK medical profession’ Organization Studies, vol. 30(7), pp.755-78.