Advisory Board

Ryan Shorthouse

Ryan Shorthouse is the Founder and Chief Executive of Bright Blue, an independent think tank and pressure group for liberal conservatism. He was previously a Research Fellow at the Social Market Foundation and is currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s College London.

Kathy Jones

Kathy Jones is the Director of newDemocracy Foundation Australia. She is the founder of KJA, one of Australia’s largest specialist stakeholder engagement and community consultation companies and a trustee of Involve. She can be heard discussing the thrill of facilitation here.

Areeq Chowdhury

Areeq Chowdhury is Head of Data Policy at the Royal Society and founder and director of WebRoots Democracy, a think tank focused on progressive and inclusive technology policy. He has previously worked at the FCO, the London Assembly, DCMS, KPMG and the UK Parliament. Areeq has also written op-eds in several national publications.

Dame Laura Cox

Laura Cox served as a Justice of the High Court from 2002 to 2016, before which she was barrister specialising in equality and employment law. In 2018 she was asked to conduct an independent inquiry into bullying and harassment of Commons staff, producing the Dame Laura Cox Report.

Matthew Taylor

Matthew Taylor is CEO of the NHS Confederation. Prior to this he was Chief Executive of the RSA, Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister and Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research. In 2016, he was appointed by the PM to be Chair of the Review of Modern Employment and in 2017 the Taylor Review was published.  

Professor Robert Blackburn

Robert Blackburn has been Professor of Constitutional Law at King’s College London since 1997, and is a leading authority on UK and comparative constitutional law. He is a Solicitor and before entering academic life practiced with a City law firm. He was appointed Honorary Queen’s Counsel in 2016.

Dr David Halpern

David Halpern has been the Chief Executive of the Behavioural Insights Team since 2010. Previously, he was Research Director at the Institute for Government and Chief Analyst at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit between 2001 and 2007. He has also held academic posts at Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard.

Miriam Levin

Miriam Levin is Director of Participatory Programming at Demos, and was previously the Project Director at Engage Britain. As a senior civil servant she was Head of Community Action and Giving at DCMS. She pioneered the Innovation in Democracy programme which used digital and deliberative methods to involve citizens in local government. Prior to this, she was responsible for community mobilisation at MHCLG.

Professor Andrew Blick

Andrew Blick is Head of the Department of Political Economy and Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at King’s College London, and the Project Director of the CCUKDemocracy. He is an expert on the UK’s democratic and constitutional arrangements and prior to academia he worked for a number of think tanks, in Parliament and as an administrative assistant in Downing Street.

Professor David Farrell

David Farrell is Head of the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. He studies parties, elections, electoral systems and members of parliament. He is an expert on the role of deliberation in constitutional reform and was Research Leader of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly.

Suzanne Hall

Suzanne Hall is the Director of Engagement at the Policy Institute, King’s College London. Suzanne is a highly skilled qualitative researcher with 20 years of public policy research experience. She led the qualitative research team at Ipsos MORI.

Ceri Davies

Ceri Davies is Director of Deliberative Research at the National Centre for Social Research, Britain’s leading independent social research institute. She is an expert qualitative social researcher currently focused on civil society and democratic engagement. She is also associate editor of the journal Research For All.

Professor Bobby Duffy

Bobby Duffy is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London. Prior to this, he was Managing Director of Public Affairs for Ipsos MORI. During the course of his career, he has also been seconded to Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at LSE.

Sir John Curtice

John Curtice is Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre for Social Research, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University and Chief Commentator on the What UK Thinks: EU and What Scotland Thinks Websites. He is also President of the British Polling Council and appears frequently on the BBC during elections.

Graham Allen

Graham is the Convener of the CCUKDemocracy and Visiting Professor of Politics at King’s College London. He was Member of Parliament for Nottingham North 1987-2017, Chair of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, architect of the Written Constitution for the UK and author and frontbench spokesperson on democratic renewal.