Robert Wilson
Senior Lecturer in Information Systems

  • Email: rob.wilson@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 1727
  • Address: Newcastle University Business School
    Barrack Road
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK
    NE1 4SE

Introduction

I am a Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University where I work in the Business School (NUBS). My research interests are in public service innovation and socio-technical systems: the role that data, information and information systems play in organisational change and inter-organisational relationships (IOR).

I have over fifteen years experience working on and leading public sector information system development and implementation projects. I have lectured widely on information systems in public sector contexts and teach on a range of UG and PG programmes including Information Systems and Research Methods.

Roles and Responsibilities

Newcastle University lead on the Management Board of the Institute of Local Governance (a partnership between the five North East Universities, twelve Unitary Councils and other key public bodies including ONE North East, the Strategic Health, Police and Fire Authorities to collaborate on public service issues) (2009 ongoing) see www.ilg.org.uk

Co-Director of the Social Informatics Living Lab (SILab), Newcastle University http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sustainability/initiatives/LivingLab.htm (an Effective Member of the European Network of Living Labs - ENoLL - see http://www.openlivinglabs.eu

Member of University Information Systems Services IT Expert group (2010 ongoing)

Member of the Centre for Knowledge Innovation Technology and Enterprise (KITE), University Research Centre (2006 ongoing)

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Sociology with Certificate of the Market Research Society

MSc Social Research

PG Certificate in Academic Practice (PCAP)

PhD Business and Managment (N'cle)

Previous positions

2007-10: Deputy/Co-Director of the Centre for Knowledge Innovation Technology and Enterprise (KITE - University Research Centre)

2004-07: Lecturer in Management and member of the Social and Business Informatics research centre/group, latterly part of the Centre for Knowledge Innovation Technology and Enterprise (KITE), Newcastle University Business School.

2003-04: Principal Research Associate, Centre for Social and Business Informatics (SBI), Institute of Policy and Practice, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

2002-03: Senior Research Associate, Business School, Centre for Software Reliability (CSR), Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), University of Newcastle, UK

1995-02: Research/Senior Research Associate, Sowerby Centre for Health Informatics (SCHIN), School of Population and Health Sciences, Medical School, University of Newcastle now Clarity Informatics (see http://www.clarity.co.uk)

Memberships

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
UK Academy for Information Systems (UKAIS)
British Association Management (BAM)

Association Directors Adult Social Services (ADASS) Information Management group
Primary Health Care Specialist Group of the British Computing Society
World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA) Informatics Working Party

Teaching 

My teaching and executive education activity draws on my research interests in exploring the use of information in the public, third sector and higher education.  I take an action learning approach to my teaching seeking to engage students through their own knowledge and experiences. I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and have been involved in pedagological research activity on aspects of the student experience including as co-investigator on two University funded Teaching Innovation awards.

I also have a strand of research which focusses on the design, implementation and use of information and information systems in the HE sector. With colleagues I have been engaged in a range of internal and external consultancy projects (e.g. for Newcastle University on aspects of the student experience and for JISC on e-portfolios and system integration) which have been funded to the tune of over £0.5M. As well as the direct impact of the learning from these activities a number of reports and tools are available. Findings have also been presented at a number of national and international conferences on policy and practice in higher education and a number of papers are being prepared for publication.

Undergraduate Teaching

Research and Consultancy Skills for Business and Management (Module Leader)

Postgraduate Teaching

Research Methods (Module Leader for Innovation and Enterprise programmes)

Managing Information (MBA and Exec MBA)

Understanding Partnership Working (Exec MBA elective - Module Leader)

Doctoral (DBA and PhD) Research Workshops

Executive Education 

Leading Change in Healthcare Environments (MSc in Healthcare Management)

Partnership Working (part of the CIPD course for the Logic Group)

A range of bespoke training sessions and workshops for public, private and third sector organisations on partnership working/inter-organisational relationships and information sharing/information governance. 

Research Interests

Over the course of my career I have been actively engaged in over fifty research and development projects. This work is based in three overlapping contexts - the integration and information aspects of health and social care; the challenges of information and measurement in local governance (the VCS/Third sector and local authorities) and the role of information and information systems in education in particular HEIs.

This has led to the production of academic publications including journal articles, book chapters and conference papers. The applied nature of much of the work in fast moving domains of policy and practice has also generated activity where impact is delivered through policy and evaluation reports, workshops, invited presentations, expert advice and manager/practitioner toolkits.

Keywords: Social informatics; Multi-agency and Inter-Organisational relationships; E-government; Health informatics/e-health; Virtual Organisations; Identity management; public service innovation

Current Projects

Ageing, Health and Social Care

Technology Strategy Board (TSB)/ESRC/NIHR funded project (2011-14) part of ALIP3 and ALIP4 programmes: Sustainable Business Models for Assistive Living Technologies (SALT) project. This is a £1.4M project led by Prof Feng Li (Cass). With my colleague Mike Martin my role is as Leader on WP2 the Co-Production workpackage with key stakeholders in the mixed economy of AL market shaping and provision. The overall project aims to examine and develop business models for scalable and sustainable market development in the area of Assistive Technologies and Services.

Australian Research Council (ARC) grant (2011-13) Generating insights for the future: A retrospective, comparative study of attempts to implement large-scale electronic health record systems. Wilson is CI of an ARC grant led by Karin Garrety (University of Wollongong) with colleagues including Ian McLoughlin (Monash University). The project will explore regional and national systems for sharing electronic health records and their role in the improving the quality of health care. The aim will be to identify and investigate sources of delay and tension, as well as future opportunities for collaboration and progress by comparing implementation in Australia and the UK. Outcomes will be applicable to other large public interorganisational systems that collect, share and use sensitive data.

NE-IEP and ILG Evaluation of the Provider Development Innovation Fund for Adult Social Care (2010-11). One of the major challenges to the delivery of the Putting People First initiatives in Adult Social Care are the challenges of developing and shaping the provider market. The NE-IEP innovation fund is an attempt to support providers to develop new tools and approaches to meet the needs of personalised adult social care in the 21st Century. Newcastle is leading the programme evaluation project for the Institute of Local Governance with colleagues from Durham University using a Theory of Change approach. For more information see www.ilg.org.uk

Sustainability

Local Carbon Framework Beacon co-production and evaluation (2011)
DECC's Low Carbon Framework Beacon programme represents an important opportunity to pilot a range of place based approaches developed through co-production between local authorise and communities in order to inform with the aim of learning from local initiatives about approaches to reducing carbon. Wilson with colleagues is working with Northumberland Council one of the national Beacon sites to support the maximisation of learning, develop the processes and evaluate the effects in the context of heritage buildings and community leadership http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/tackling/saving_energy/what_doing/local_councils/carbon_frames/carbon_frames.aspx

Future Research

A prospective stream of work is the development of regional infrastructures and governance environments for multi-agency working/inter-organisational relationships including the challenges of Open Data and local Community Budgeting

Implementation of information systems in the contexts of health and social care and wider societal challenges of personalisaton

Ongoing research into information systems and informational practices in the VCS/third sector including Social Value tools

Continuing thread of work on the production of useful knowledge for Newcastle University and HE sector on the challenges of strategic information management, partnership, knowledge transfer and engagement with stakeholders (including the student experience and student satisfaction)

Research Roles

Member of the Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE), Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle University www.ncl.ac.uk/kite 

Member of the Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability (NiReS)

Postgraduate Supervision

As well as having extensive experience of supervising Masters students I am interested hearing from potential Doctoral students in the areas of multi-agency working, health informatics and e-health, and information systems in the voluntary and community sector (inc social care).

Current Doctoral Supervisions:
Penny Hill (PhD Joined up assessment processes in social care)
Brian Ross (PhD Partnership working and entreprenerial identity in the VCS)
Graham Armitage (DBA Collaborative working between Universities in the context of Ageing and Health research)
Dele Ojelabi (DBA Adoption of e-business technologies in the context of Not-for-Profit organisations in North America)

Esteem Indicators

Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (2008 ongoing)

Associate Member of the Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics (COSI), Faculty of IT, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (2011 ongoing) http://infotech.monash.edu/research/centres/cosi/

Visiting Fellow, College of Medical and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (2010 ongoing)

Part of the Editorial team for a Themed Edition of Public Money and Management on the use of Information in Local Governance (due to be published 2013) Call for Papers http://www.cipfa.org.uk/pt/pmm/calls_for_papers.cfm

Part of the Editorial team for a Special Issue of Information Communication and Society on Community Research and Informatics (2012) (Papers under Review)

Part of the Editorial team for a Themed Section of Social Policy and Society on the Mixed Economy of Welfare (Published in 2011 Volume 10,3)

Member of the core group of the ESRC Seminar series 2010-12 on Public Service Innovation led by Prof Stephen Osbourne, University of Edinburgh

Member of the NIHR Normalisation Process Model (NPM) Peer Learning Group

Member of the DCLG FAME post-project partnership board 

Member of the Editorial Boards of the following journals: Information and Management, Informatics in Primary Care, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy journal.

Reviewer for , Information Communication and Society (ICS), Public Management Review, Non-Profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, British Medical Journal, Health Informatics Journal and a range of other publications.

Member of the WONCA Informatics Working party (World Organisation of Family Doctors) (97-ongoing) List owner GP-UK (JISCmail) 96-02 and Member since 02, List Owner INFOgov (JISCmail) 07-present, List owner GP-WONCA 96-01 and WONCA Webmaster 96-01

During the past 10 years I have been an invited speaker to delegates at a range of academic, policy and practitioner/manager conferences and workshops on a range of issues including e-health, e-social care, partnership working and information sharing including talks for: ESRC, MISC 31, DCLG/ODPM, Public Sector Forums, eGov Monitor, SoCITM, Ark-Media, KableNet/Guardian, Capita Conferences, External Funding Bulletin, London Business Conferences, Integrated Care Network, IDeA, ADASS and BJHC.

Funding

Over the course of the last decade I have been PI or CI of funding of over £4.5M from a range of sources including Research Councils/Agencies (including ESRC, EPSRC, NIHR, TSB, JISC, EC Frameworks 5 and 6), and national government departments (including DCLG, DH, DECC) and a range of other international, national and regional bodies (see below for details).

Selected Past Projects

Principal-Investigator DECC/Northumberland County Council, Local Carbon Framework Beacon co-production and evaluation (2011) see http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/tackling/saving_energy/what_doing/local_councils/carbon_frames/carbon_frames.aspx

Principal-Investigator NE-IEP and ILG Evaluation of the Provider Development Innovation Fund for Adult Social Care (2010-11)

Principal-Investigator Technology Strategy Board (TSB) Knowledge Transfer Project (KTP) Development of an Accreditation Scheme for Assistive Living Products in partnership with the Better Living Trust (2010-11)

Principal-Investigator Newcastle University Valuing Social Values (VSV) Network (2009-11). Co-Productive project with NE Social Enterprise Partnership (NESEP), VONNE, Pentagon Partnership and Co-Operatives North East

Co-investigator ESRC Seminar Series grant Re-mixing the economy of welfare: beyond the market and the state (2008-10) see www.socialwelfareservicedelivery.org.uk

Principal-Investigator of FP6 Older Peoples Services at Home (OLDES) project (2007-10) See www.oldes.eu

Principal-Investigator of NE-IEP Survey of Progress towards Good Practice in Information Governance in Local Government and Fire and Rescue Services in the NE Region (2009-10)

Co-Investigator DH ICT Policy Research programme Integrating Telecare for Chronic Disease Management in the Community project (2007-9)

Co-investigator NE-EP Local Authority Approaches to Community Engagement, Empowerment and Development (2008)

Co-investigator ESRC IMPACT grant on Delivering public services in the mixed economy of welfare: Putting research into practice (2007-8) www.socialwelfareservicedelivery.org.uk

Co-Investigator of JISC JULIET (Information Environment for HE) project (2006-7) www.jisc.ac.uk

Co-Investigator of JISC MUSIC (System Integration in FE/HE) project (2006-7) www.jisc.ac.uk

Co-Investigator of JISC EPICS (Regional e-portfolios for FE/HE) project (2005-6) www.epics.ac.uk 

Principal-Investigator of ODPM/DCLG Local e-government programme, FAME (Framework for Multi-Agency environments) National Project (2003-6) www.fame-uk.org

Principal-Investigator of NE Regional Centre for Excellence Children's Service Directories (CSD) project (2006)

Principal-Investigator of ODPM Centre Local e-Communications (CLEC) project (2003-4)

Co-Investigator of FP5 IST SmartOrganisations AESOP project (2002-4)

Co-Investigator of DH Social Care Information Policy Unit Virtual ESCR project (2002-3)

Senior Researcher on EPSRC System Integration programme - Multi-Agency Environments (AMASE) project (2002-4)

Senior Researcher on DH/NHS Executive E-Prescriptions Messaging trial (ETP project) (2001-2)

Senior Researcher on NHS R&D programme Repeat Prescribing Decision-Support project (2000-01)

Researcher/Senior Researcher on DH/NHS Executive PRODIGY GP Prescribing Decision-Support project (95-02)

Details on all projects (including reports) are available through www.ncl.ac.uk/kite or by contacting me via my e-mail address: Rob.Wilson@ncl.ac.uk

Selected publications are available via eprint.ncl.ac.uk

Industrial Relevance

Design, implementation and intepretation of information and of information systems in the public/third sector
Collaborative working/Inter-organisational relationships
Multi-agency working and environments
Information sharing and information governance in partnership and collaborations
Information design and evaluation 

Projects