James Wilsdon

I'm a metascientist who works on the governance and management of science and research. Since 2023, I've been based at UCL, as a Professor of Research Policy in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering & Public Policy (STEaPP) and Executive Director of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), a nonprofit consortium which I co-founded in 2019 with a mission to accelerate transformative research on research systems, cultures and decision-making. RoRI now has 55 partners from 23 countries, which between them invest over US$33 billion a year in research.

Since the late-1990s, I have worked at the heart of science and research policy in the UK, Europe and internationally. In addition to academic posts at the universities of Sheffield, Sussex (SPRU) and Lancaster, I have worked in think tanks, NGOs and as Director of Science Policy for the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences

In my work as a researcher and policy adviser, I've advanced concepts such as upstream public engagement, science diplomacy, responsible metrics and responsible research assessment. I co-founded the International Network for Governmental Science Advice (INGSA), and until 2021, served as its inaugural vice-chair. I also chaired the UK’s Campaign for Social Science until 2018, and in 2014-15 chaired an independent review of research metrics for the UK government, published as The Metric Tide — more recently revisited in Harnessing the Metric Tide. From 2016-17, I chaired a European Commission expert group on next-generation metrics.

I have longstanding research interests in science and innovation policy in China. On behalf of the UK government, I led two influential studies of developments under China’s 2006-2020 Medium-to-Long-Term Plan for S&T: China: the next science superpower? (2007) and China’s Absorptive State (2013), I currently serve as a co-chair of the International Review Board for the China Fundamental Research Development Report (forthcoming, 2026). I'm also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science, and a member of the International Strategic Committee of the School of Information Management at Wuhan University.

In 2015, I was elected a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and in 2022, of the International Science Council (ISC). I'm a non-resident Fellow at the think-tank Progress Ireland, and a member of the Research Council of Norway's International Advisory Board. In 2025, I led the organisation of Metascience 2025, the largest meeting yet of the global metascience community – which drew over 800 delegates from 65 countries, and was co-hosted by RoRI and the Center for Open Science at UCL.