Professor Kenneth Nelson
About
Professor Kenneth Nelson holds the Barnett Professorship in Social Policy at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI) at the University of Oxford and is also Head of Department. He joined DSPI and St Cross College, Oxford in April 2023, and was previously Professor of Sociology at Stockholm University.
Professor Nelson conducts research on the drivers and consequences of welfare states and social policy, often using comparative research methods, and has written extensively on various topics related to social policy, including the role of partisan politics, poverty, social inequality, health, intergenerational justice and employment. He is also currently directing several externally financed research projects on the environmentally friendly welfare state, housing policy and the measurement of social policy.
Professor Nelson is director of the renowned Social Policy Indicators Database (SPIN). He is also co-chair of the European Social Policy Analysis network (ESPAnet), which is the largest international research community on social policy in Europe, if not the world. He is board member of the Foundation for International Studies of Social Security (FISS), and active in several research projects at European level.
Expertise
- Social insurance and social assistance in European countries
- Poverty reduction
- Income inequality
- Social policy and population aging
- Intergenerational justice
Selected publications
- "Age Universalism will Benefit All (Ages)" in Aging without Agism? (2023)
- Social Policy in Changing European Societies: Research Agendas for the 21st Century (2022)
- The political determinants of housing benefits (2022)
- Towards a new consolidated framework for analysing benefit coverage (2021)
- The Social Policy Indicators (SPIN) database (2020)
- Student support and tuition fee systems in comparative perspective (2020)
Media experience
Professor Kenneth Nelson has media experience, including being interviewed by Swedish media (both newspapers and TV) and also in the UK including with outlets such as The Guardian and The Economist.