Professor Elliott Johnson

VC Fellow

School: Communities and Education

Elliott is a Vice Chancellor's Fellow in Public Policy at Northumbria University, Public Affairs Lead for the Common Sense Policy Group and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is founding lead of Northumbria’s Disability and Lived Experience Expert Group, a founding member of the university’s Disability Equality Forum, a member of the university’s Ethics Review College and a member of ESRC’s Peer Review College.

Elliott is an internationally recognised leader in disability and social security research, with his work focusing on inequalities and social determinants of health, particularly the impact of work and welfare and especially in relation to disabled and underrepresented people. His specific innovations include integration of evidence from existing datasets and primary survey-based research to support modelling, development of adversarial co-production of narratives to persuade opponents of evidence-based policy, and creation of the first generic, adaptive protocol for the evaluation of cash transfer trials within the public health case for Basic Income. He has secured more than £2.6M in funding to support this work.

His work on social security has led to his being invited to provide expert advice to the Government and to the London Assembly’s review of Basic Income. His impact work builds on a background in the third sector, in which he contributed to sector-wide standards, organisational approaches and national policy in four sectors: disability, sport, education and engineering.

His research, teaching and practice emphasise values and behaviours of collaboration and inclusivity, in particular, seeking to empower colleagues, participants and stakeholders and deliver more equitable outcomes. He co-ordinated the School of Communities and Education’s contributions to the Common Sense Policy Group’s Beveridge-style policy platform, Act Now and leads the school's PhD by Published Work Staff Programme.

He regularly appears as an expert contributor on outlets such as Times Radio and LBC, and served as 2024 UK General Election analysis for BBC Radio. His work has been covered by, among others, the Guardian, Independent, Times, Telegraph, Spectator, FT, BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 News, ITV News, Channel 5 News, CNBC and TIME.

Email Elliott

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Elliott's primary research interest is the social determinants of health, and the public policy means of addressing them. Much of his work has focused on work and welfare, particularly Basic Income, and especially in relation to disabled people. Specifically, his work examines the following areas:

Health impact
Economic feasibility
Public acceptability
Narratives to ‘sell’ the policy
Additional needs, including those of disabled people

He also has broader expertise on inclusion, disability and inclusive physical activity.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
A Common Sense Review of 2025: Common Sense Policy Group Annual Report, Thew, A., Reed, H., Johnson, M., Johnson, E. 2 Feb 2026
Climate change mitigation and workers’ interests: why framing a Green New Deal as redistributive and security-enhancing is key to popularity, Ardron, K., Stark, G., Meller, S., Reed, H., Johnson, M., Johnson, E. 13 Jan 2026, In: F1000Research
Does Money Only Matter in Low-to-Middle Income Countries? Public Health Policymakers’ Assessments of Material Social Determinants in Different Development Contexts, Johnson, E., Cooper, C., Fearnley, H., Hart, C., Thew, A., Johnson, S., Croft, E., Chrisp, J., Mathur, V., Howard, N., Stark, G., Reed, H., Nettle, D., Johnson, M. 25 Feb 2026, In: Basic Income Studies
Nice idea that people would vote for: why Basic Income is more popular than policymakers assume, Johnson, M., Nettle, D., Johnson, E. 8 Jan 2026, The Politics of Basic Income in the Public and Private Sector, New York, United States, Palgrave Macmillan
Non-Animal New Approach Methodologies (NAMs): Increasingly effective in validated contexts, more ethical and more economically productive, Johnson, E., Reed, H., Thew, A., Johnson, M. 28 May 2026, In: NAM Journal
Reducing avoidable deaths and energy poverty: Conjoint experimental survey evidence on United Kingdom voters’ priorities for energy policy, Thew, A., Stark, G., Reed, H., Johnson, M., Johnson, E. 1 Feb 2026, In: Energy Research and Social Science
Reliability and affordability: understanding the reasons for UK voters’ support for nationalisation and public control, Littlefair, D., Stark, G., Johnson, S., Atkinson, J., Reed, H., Johnson, E., Johnson, M. 1 Mar 2026, In: Transport Policy
Towards a credible trial of the health effects of Universal Basic Income in Norway: research priorities identified from a concept mapping workshop, Froud, R., Grotle, M., Bay, A., Pedersen, A., Birnbaum, S., Cantillon, B., Wispelaere, J., Gibson, M., Haagh, L., Johnson, E., Laín, B., Øiestad, B., Underwood, M. 25 Mar 2026
UK resident preferences on tax reform: survey-based evidence suggests support for progressive change in the run up to the 2024 General Election, Johnson, E., Stark, G., Moseley, L., Littlefair, D., Atkinson, J., Johnson, M., Reed, H. 18 Feb 2026, In: Journal of Social Policy
Upstream cash-based interventions are key to addressing mental health among children and young people, Thew, A., Johnson, E., Reed, H., Johnson, M. 27 Feb 2026

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Does Universal Basic Income Improve Health?Knowledge Gaps and the Design of a Randomised Controlled Trial: Experts’ sessions on gaps and design 2025
Invited talk: Popularity, feasibility and affordability, and how these relate to the assessment of evidence 2025
Other: Grant reviewer: Netherlands Organisation of Health, Research and Development (ZonMw) 2025
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: London Assembly Economy, Culture and Skills Committee expert panel evidence-gathering session on Universal Basic Income (UBI) in London 2025
Other: Expert comment: German experiment gave people a basic monthly income - the effect on their work ethic was surprising 2025
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Health and disability benefits reform roundtable hosted by Minister of State for Social Security and Disability 2025
Publication Peer-review: International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services (Journal) 2025
Publication Peer-review: PLoS One (Journal) 2025
Publication Peer-review: Psychology, Health and Medicine (Journal) 2025
Editorial work: Routledge Open Research (Journal) 2025

PGR Supervision

David Nichol Empowering Educators for the Future: Collaboration and co-construction to promote preparedness, readiness and professional learning Start Date: 01/09/2025 End Date: 21/12/2025
Karen Hudson You can take the girl out of the nursery, but you can’t take the nursery out of the girl: Early years pedagogy as a framework for professional partnership developments in teacher development in an HEI. Start Date: 09/09/2025

Qualifications