Professor Michael Roy

Prof Social Innovation & Sustainable Org

Management, Work and Organisation 3A41 Cottrell Building

Professor Michael Roy

Contact details

About me

Professor Michael Roy's primary area of research concerns social enterprise and other ‘alternative’ economic forms. He has written extensively on the health and wellbeing impacts of social enterprises; on policy ‘ecosystems’ supporting the social economy; on collaborative governance and co-production involving nonprofits and the public sector; and on innovative and controversial funding mechanisms such as Social Impact Bonds. He is interested in the intersection of ideas such as social and solidarity economy/wellbeing economy, and social economy/circular economy.

His research is regularly guided by the critical realist philosophy, and he has worked on several realist evaluations, particularly focusing on 'what works, for whom, and in what circumstances' in complex community settings.

He has led several prominent research projects. Most recently these have included:

oInnovation and Creativity in the Third Sector in response to COVID-19: A Rapid Realist Evidence Synthesis. This was a project funded by the Scottish Government’s Office of the Chief Social Science Advisor (2022)

oSolidarity in a time of crisis: the role of mutual aid to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was funded by the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (2020).

oIn 2023 he led an interdisciplinary project funded by the AHRC called CommonHealth Catalyst involving partners from a range of public sector and third sector partners on the role of the voluntary and community sector in integrated health and care systems.

oHe is presently Co-Investigator on a major project funded by the National Institute for Health Research called CommonHealth Assets (2021-onwards) undertaking an evaluation of the health and wellbeing impacts of community-led organisations in 'deprived' areas of the UK.

In 2022 he was elected as Chair of the Development Trusts Association Scotland, the national membership body for organisations focused on community-led place-based socioeconomic development. He regularly advises national and international governments (e.g. the Scottish Government, the Government of Ontario) and international agencies (e.g. the ILO and OECD). In 2023-24 he has been involved in a Scottish Government working group focused on the area of the National Strategy for Economic Transformation on Inclusive and Democratic Business Models.

Michael is presently Editor-in-Chief of the longest established field journal on social enterprise Social Enterprise Journal and is Associate Editor of Journal of Social Entrepreneurship. He serves on the editorial board of both the Canadian Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research, and Nonprofit Policy Forum.

Social Enterprise Social Economy Co-production Circular Economy

Award

Association for Social Economics - Helen Potter Award of Special Recognition
The Helen Potter Award was created and endowed in 1975. It is presented each year to the author of the best article in the Review of Social Economy by a promising scholar of social economics.