Professor Irene Hardill

Professor

School: Humanities and Social Sciences

Irene joined Northumbria in September 2010 as Professor of Public Policy. Prior to that she was Professor in the Graduate School, Business, Law and Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University. She has a particular expertise in volunteering and the voluntary and community sector working collaboratively to co-produce knowledge. Her recent research has been supported by ESRC and includes leading a project on mobilising voluntary action during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has recently completed an evaluation of the impact of COVID-19 on methodological innovation for the ESRC. In addition to managing an extensive list of ESRC-funded projects she has managed projects from other sponsors including the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, Age UK, the Canadian High Commission and the French Government. Over the years she has published on the changing world of work through the many meanings of work, paid and unpaid in the home and in the community. Her two recent Policy Press books (published in 2021 and 2022 are available free via open access).

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Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Civil society in crisis times: new geographies of governance in an era of AI, Hardill, I., Milnes, S., Mills, S., Jones, R. 6 Apr 2026, In: Space and Polity
Suffering, Silence, and the State: Mass Observation’s 1994 Assisted Dying Letters and the Enduring Politics of Palliative Care, Merlane, H., Hardill, I., McEwan, K. 17 Jun 2026, In: Politics and Policy
Human Geography and the Study of Governance and Society: Perspectives from the UK, Hardill, I. 13 Mar 2025, The Humanities and Public Administration, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar
Why Britain needs a new Beveridge and why politicians need to defer to the evidence, Hardill, I., Johnson, E., Johnson, M. 20 Oct 2025, In: Contemporary Social Science: Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences
Act Now: A vision for a better future and a new social contract, Johnson, M., Dorling, D., Driscoll, J., Hardill, I., Hobbs, C., Johnson, E., Lawson, N., Nadel, J., Nettle, D., Pickett, K., Polanski, Z., Pollock, A., Reed, H., Robson, I., Stark, G., Taylor-Robinson, D., Wilkinson, R. 1 Jul 2024
Breaking the Overton Window: on the need for adversarial co-production, Johnson, E., Hardill, I., Johnson, M., Nettle, D. 1 Aug 2024, In: Evidence and Policy
How can academics remove barriers for the most excluded? A call for advocacy from lived experience in the UK and Ireland, Efemini, C., Forster, N., Gallagher, M., Hardill, I., Heslop, K., Littlefair, D., Marsden, N., Meller, S., Ó’Tuama, S., Toyne, A., Johnson, M. Nov 2024, In: Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning
We need to demand more from policymakers and politicians, Johnson, M., Johnson, E., Robson, I., Hardill, I. 30 May 2024
What’s the point of co-production when all your participants agree with you?, Johnson, M., Johnson, E., Hardill, I., Nettle, D. 11 Mar 2024
Co‐curation: Archival interventions and voluntary sector records, Brewis, G., Ellis Paine, A., Hardill, I., Lindsey, R., Macmillan, R. 1 Sep 2023, In: Area