Robert Dingwall

Robert Dingwall is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University

He has previously worked mainly in research centres at the Universities of Aberdeen, Oxford and Nottingham. He began his career with a PhD in medical sociology and then contributed to developing the sociology of law as a field of research in the UK. He was latterly Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham, where he founded the Institute for Science and Society, which was an interdisciplinary research group investigating issues in science, technology and society. This initially focussed on developments in genetics and biosciences but later extended its interest to ICT, energy and climate change.

Robert Dingwall has wide international experience in research, particularly in the study of law, medicine, science and technology. In this, he has focussed mainly on issues about professions, work and organisations, and about their face to face interaction with their clients or users. He has also written on social theory, research ethics and qualitative research methods. His projects have included studies of agency decision-making in child protection, the history of nursing, divorce mediation, asbestos disease litigation, medical negligence, the treatment of evolution in TV wildlife programmes and innovations in the delivery of pharmaceutical and genetic services. He is currently investigating social technologies for stabilising the future, particularly in the context of transport and energy use and continuing to write on topics in research ethics and organisation studies. His previous work on pandemic planning has led to extensive government and media-related engagement in response to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.