Dr Gordon Barrett

Research Fellow

School: Humanities and Social Sciences

I am a Research Fellow in History, as a member of the project team on the ‘Global Governance, Trust and Democratic Engagement in Past and Present’ project (Trans-Atlantic Platform) and am a co-investigator on 'Historicising Earth System Governance: International Organisations, the Environment and the Geopolitics of Expertise, 1950s–90s' (British Academy International Interdisciplinary Project Awards 2026).

I joined Northumbria in 2025, having previously been based at the University of Manchester’s Centre for the History of Science Technology and Medicine as a Research Associate on the ‘Negotiating World Research Data’ project (European Research Council). Prior to this, I served as Departmental Lecturer in Modern Chinese History and Politics for the Faculty of History and Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford (2016-2022) and as a Research Fellow at Wolfson College (2020-2022).

In 2015, alongside receiving my PhD from the University of Bristol, I undertook a collaborative digitisation and engagement project with the Needham Research Institute as part of the British Inter-University China Centre Cultural Engagement Partnership.

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Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
China's Cold War Science Diplomacy, Barrett, G. 31 Aug 2022
Decentring Histories of Science Diplomacy: Cases from Asia, Barrett, G., Homei, A. 1 Jun 2024, In: British Journal for the History of Science
Between Sovereignty and Legitimacy: China and UNESCO, 1946–1953, BARRETT, G. 3 Sep 2019, In: Modern Asian Studies