Lancaster University: Academy honour for Lancaster professor

A Lancaster University professor has been honoured for his contribution to the world of social sciences.

Professor Malcolm Tight from the Department of Educational Research joins an ‘impressive range of leading social scientists’ who have been conferred the award of Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Making the announcement, the Academy of Social Sciences said new Fellows are recognised, after an independent peer review process, for the excellence and impact of their work and their wider contributions to the social sciences for public benefit.

The Academy’s Fellowship is made up of distinguished individuals from academic, public, private and third sectors, across the full breadth of the social sciences.

Through leadership, scholarship, applied research, policymaking, and practice, they have helped to deepen the understanding of, and address, some of the toughest challenges facing our society and the world.

Collectively, the new Fellows who have been conferred demonstrate the breadth of contributions the social sciences make to political, social, economic lives.

President of the Academy of Social Sciences Will Hutton said: “As the Academy extends its outward-facing focus, engagement with all sectors of the social science community is vitally important and I very much hope to draw on the deep knowledge and expertise of our new Fellows.”

Professor Tight came to Lancaster University in 2004 having previously worked at the University of Warwick, the Open University and Birkbeck College London.

He is Editor of the leading international journal Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, and of the book series International Perspectives on Higher Education Research and Theory and Method in Higher Education Research, and also on the Editorial Boards of the journals European Journal of Higher Education and Higher Education Research and Development.

Professor Tight said: “It is good to gain this recognition, both for my own work in the field of higher education research and for the field as a whole. A great deal has been achieved in higher education research and we now have a much clearer idea of what we know and what needs further research.”