Rate My Professor Ellen Stewart

Ellen Stewart is Professor of Public Policy and Health in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, where she also serves as Associate in the School of Health and Wellbeing. She is a social scientist working at the intersection of medical sociology and health policy, with expertise in qualitative and participatory methodologies. Her research examines how health systems accommodate and negotiate different forms of lay and expert knowledge, including public engagement and evidence-based policy. Stewart collaborates across disciplines, including sciences and humanities, and has led projects funded by the Wellcome Trust, UKRI, and Chief Scientist Office Scotland, with a cumulative value exceeding £14 million.

Prior to Glasgow, Stewart was Co-Director of the Centre for Health Policy at the University of Strathclyde (2021-2024) and Chancellor's Fellow in the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society at the University of Edinburgh (2016-2021), alongside postdoctoral and research assistant roles at the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews Medical Schools. Key publications include her monograph How Britain Loves the NHS: Practices of Care and Contestation (Policy Press, 2023), Publics and Their Health Systems: Rethinking Participation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and the co-authored The Impact Agenda: Controversies, Consequences and Challenges (Policy Press, 2020). Recent articles address national charitable fundraising for the NHS (Social Policy and Administration, 2024), solidarity and inequality in COVID-19 crowdfunding (Social Science and Medicine, 2022), and public involvement in policy modelling (Research Involvement and Engagement, 2024). Stewart is Editor of Sociology of Health and Illness, serves on the REF 2029 Main Panel C as Interdisciplinary Expert, and was Executive Committee member of the Social Policy Association (2018-2024). She became Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2026 and received the Social Policy Association's Cambridge University Press Award for Excellence in Social Policy Scholarship in 2018.