New senior appointments made in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University

Based in the Department of Sociology, they will be joining the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit where Hannah will become PERU’s new Director and Rob Wilson will become the Director of the Masters in Public Administration.

Collectively, Hannah, Toby and Rob’s work on relational public service focuses on innovation in public service reform, and public management and public policy, resulting in the development of a new approach to public management called Human Learning Systems (HLS).

Professor Hannah Hesselgreaves will be appointed Professor of Public Service Reform and Director of PERU. Hannah is currently Professor of Organisational Learning at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University and has a background is in organisational development, applied to healthcare education.

Her current work focuses on developing complexity-informed evaluation and building learning and evaluative capacity in public sector organisations as a learning partner. She is also developing innovations in much needed complexity-informed approaches to public service reform, which are helping to build capacity in many parts of social reform.

Professor Rob Wilson will join the University as Professor of Digital Social Innovation. Currently he is Professor of Digital Economy at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. His research is broadly positioned in the relationship between information systems and public and social innovation including the emergence of relational thinking in social policy, public management and public administration.

Professor Toby Lowe will become Professor of Public Management. Toby is currently Professor of Public Management at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. Toby spent 15 years working across the public and voluntary sectors in the UK, working in both policy and delivery roles (including national government, funding agencies and regional government bodies). He has recently returned from a secondment with the Centre for Public Impact where he built a global platform for the HLS approach.

The team will use their expertise to shape and develop the Masters in Public Administration course, embedding relational ideas like HLS throughout this programme.