Professor Gordon Walker from the Lancaster Environment Centre has been made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, the UK’s most prestigious award for social scientists.

Professor Gordon Walker is among 51 new Fellows, who are elected on the basis of their outstanding contributions to research and to the application of social science to policy, education, society and the economy.

The Academy’s Fellowship is made up of distinguished individuals from academic, public and private sectors, across the full breadth of the social sciences.

Through leadership, applied research, policymaking and practice, they have worked to help understand and tackle some of the toughest challenges facing us in modern times. His work has contributed to the UK’s position as a world leader in the social sciences.

Gordon is renowned for his intellectual leadership in the area of environmental justice and sustainability. He is a highly cited human geographer and one of the first scholars in the UK working on environmental justice. He has led a series of projects funded by government agencies, formed interdisciplinary collaborations with others in the UK, Europe and US and written the first integrated text on environmental justice, published by Routledge in 2012. He has championed the importance of bringing a carefully considered social science of inequality and justice into policy and practice on key societal concerns, including air pollution, flood risk, vulnerability to heat and energy poverty.

He recently completed Co-Directing the DEMAND Centre, funded by the RCUK End Use Energy Demand Programme, engaging with the dynamics of energy demand through a distinctive social science-led research agenda.

Professor Roger Goodman, the President of the Academy of Social Sciences, said: “We are immensely proud to welcome 51 new Fellows to the Academy who are so highly accomplished in their fields. They have been selected following a robust review by their peers and have been recognised for the excellence of their work and its applications in academia, business and the public sector.

“Over the course of their careers they have surpassed the normal requirements of their positions and many have used social sciences to deliver public benefit in the realms of social, economic and environmental policy, and in higher education, regional development, government and law. I offer our new Fellows my sincerest congratulations and look forward to collaborating with them to take forward the Academy’s ambitions.”

See the full list of new Fellows

The Academy of Social Sciences is the national academy of academics, learned societies and practitioners in the social sciences. Its mission is to promote social science in the United Kingdom for public benefit.