Advisory Boards

Bobby Duffy is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute. He has worked across most public policy areas in his career of 30 years in policy research and evaluation, including being seconded to the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. Bobby sits on several advisory boards including Chairing both the Campaign for Social Science and the CLOSER Advisory Board, is a member of the Executive of the Academy of Social Sciences, a trustee of British Future and the Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO) and a Senior Fellow of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Will Jennings is Professor of Political Science at Public Policy at the University of Southampton and Co-Founder of the recently launched think tank The Centre for Towns. His research explores questions relating to public policy and political behaviour, specifically in relation to agenda-setting, public opinion, elections, democratic innovations, political geography, policy disasters, and anti-politics. He was a member of the independent inquiry instigated by the British Polling Council and Market Research Society to investigate the performance of the pre-election polls at the 2015 general election. He is co-author of Policy Agendas in British Politics (Palgrave, 2013), The Politics of Competence: Parties, Public Opinion and Voters (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and The Good Politician: Folk Theories, Political Interaction and the Rise of Anti-Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). 

Elina Kestilä-Kekkonen is Acting Professor of Political Science at University of Tampere, Finland. In the years 2015–2019, she led the research project Consortium of Trust Research – Pathways to Political Trust (Contre). During the years 2019–2023, she led the research project Education, Political Efficacy and Informed Citizenship (EPIC) funded by the Academy of Finland. Her main research interests are political trust, electoral behaviour, and radical rights. She has published extensively of these topics for instance in European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, Scandinavian Political Studies, and the European Political Science Review.

Tom van der Meer is full professor in Political Science, in particular Legitimacy, Inequality and Citizenship at the University of Amsterdam. He is also co-director of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study (since 2015) and first director of the Dutch Local Election Study. He specializes in political trust, electoral behaviour, (ethnic diversity and) social capital, and research methods. Van der Meer has published in a wide variety of national and international journals and edited volumes on themes such as political trust, electoral volatility, social capital, citizen participation, and quantitative research methods (see publications). He is co-editor of the Handbook on Political Trust (with Sonja Zmerli) that was published in 2017 by Edward Elgar Publishing. 

Dietlind Stolle is James McGill Professor in Political Science at McGill University and former Director of the Inter-University Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. She conducts research on voluntary associations, trust, social capital, ethnic diversity, immigrant integration, political participation, neuro-politics, democratic backsliding and gender and politics. Her work has been published in the American Political Science Review (APSR), the Journal of Politics (JOP), the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (BJPS) and other journals.

Sonja Zmerli is Professor of Political Science at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Grenoble, France. Her research interests revolve around social capital, civil society, political support, income inequality, and welfare regimes. Her articles have appeared in Public Opinion Quarterly, European Political Science Review, American Behavioral Scientist, and Social Science Research. Most recently, she has co-edited the Handbook on Political Trust (2017, with Tom van der Meer). 

A J Brown is professor of public policy and law in the School of Government & International Relations, and co-leader of the Centre for Governance & Public Policy’s integrity, leadership and public trust program.  A 30-year veteran of developments in Australia’s integrity systems, he has previously worked for both federal and state governments in Australia, and consulted for local government. Since 2010 he has been a boardmember of Transparency International Australia, the world anti-corruption organisation, and in 2017 and again in 2020 was elected to Transparency International's global board, where he led the development of its current worldwide strategy 'Holding Power to Account, 2021-2030'. He is a past President of the Australian Political Studies Association (2017-18), member of the Commonwealth Ministerial Expert Advisory Panels on Whistleblower Protection (2017-2019) and Constitutional Recognition of Local Government (2011), and Delegate to the Australia2020 Summit (2008). In 2012, his biography Michael Kirby: Paradoxes & Principles was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, Walkley Book Award and National Biography Award.  He is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. 

Max Grömping is a Lecturer with the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University. He studies how citizens organise to effect political change and under which conditions they are successful. His key research areas are interest representation, comparative authoritarianism, electoral integrity, and media politics.  Previously, he worked as Lecturer at Heidelberg University (Germany), Research Associate at the Electoral Integrity Project, University of Sydney (Australia), and instructor in International Relations at Thammasat University (Thailand), and has been visiting Research Fellow at the Social Science Center Berlin (WZB) in 2016/17. Max co-leads the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Project “Public Interest Advocacy in Australian Policymaking“. His work is published in Political Communication, Governance, Party Politics, Democratization, and Policy Sciences, among others. 

Eric Harrison has been at City University of London since October 2006 when he joined what is now European Social Survey Headquarters as a Research Fellow. He has held various responsibilities relating to the coordination of multiple EC Framework Programme projects, as well as pursuing research relating to survey methodology, social inequality and societal wellbeing. He became Deputy Director of the European Social Survey ERIC in 2014. Dr Harrison's main research interests include social stratification, societal wellbeing, work and occupations and survey methodology. He has also published on developments in higher education and the teaching of undergraduate sociology. He is currently a member of the editorial board for International Journal of Social Research Methodology.

Monica Brezzi is Head of the Governance Indicators and Performance Division in the OECD Directorate for Public Governance. She works on issues related to public governance and trust in institutions, and the use of performance information in policymaking and service delivery. She spearheaded the 2021 OECD Trust Survey, a nationally-representative survey on public trust and its drivers implemented in 22 OECD countries. In 2017-19 she was the Director of Technical Assessment and Monitoring at the Council of Europe Development Bank. 

Caitlin Semo is the Head of Partnerships at the Edelman Trust Institute. As part of her role, she cultivates relationships with experts and researchers across academia, civil society and government to inform, amplify and validate Edelman Trust Barometer research. Caitlin also oversees programming for the Institute, including their ongoing salon series and trust trainings. Prior to joining Edelman, Caitlin was Associate Director of Impact & Special Projects at (RED), Bono and Bobby Shriver’s global health nonprofit, where she oversaw the organization’s partnerships with global NGOs and collaborated with (RED)’s corporate and policy partners to develop impact-driven storytelling and marketing campaigns focused on the fight against HIV/AIDS and COVID-19.

Dr. David Bersoff is Head of Research at Edelman Trust Institute. Dr. Bersoff is the lead researcher on all of Edelman's trust-oriented thought leadership, including the Edelman Trust Barometer. He also leads the Institute's research-based collaborations. Prior to joining Edelman in 2016, David spent 18 years as a consumer insights and marketing strategy consultant at The Futures Company. In his last 5 years with the organization, he served as its Chief Insights Officer and was a member of its global board of directors. Prior to entering the consulting world, David spent 12 years engaged in social science research at various Ivy League institutions, including 4 years as an assistant professor of social psychology and research methodology at the University of Pennsylvania.