Two Lancaster academics are among 74 ‘outstanding’ social scientists to be recognised for excellence in their fields.

Professor of Law Suzanne Ost and Senior Lecturer in Sociology Dr Aaron Winter have been made Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences, elected for the strength of their work and their significant contributions to social science for public benefit.

The work of the new cohort of Fellows highlights the vital role of the social sciences in understanding and helping to address some of the complex societal challenges facing the UK and the world today.

Professor Suzanne Ost’s research focuses on two principal areas. The first is healthcare law, medical law, and bioethics, particularly assisted dying, exploitation in healthcare, sexual boundaries breaches between doctors and patients, and the impact of criminal law on healthcare practice and bioethical decision-making.

Her second area of research examines unknowing victims of crime, legal and societal responses to child sexual abuse material, and issues relating to the sexual grooming, exploitation, and abuse of children. Professor Ost is a Council Member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. She was Expert Adviser to Jersey’s Assisted Dying Review Panel (2025-2026), and Expert Adviser to Jersey’s and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ Citizens’ Juries on Assisted Dying in 2021 and 2024.

Professor Ost said: “The value of social science research to society and the wider world has never been greater. Addressing many of the most pressing challenges of our time requires insights from disciplines that examine legal and political systems, economic structures, human behaviour and complex social dynamics.

“I am delighted to have been conferred as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. As a researcher working across law, ethics and society, I am deeply committed to demonstrating the real-world impact of social science research through policy engagement, engaging with diverse publics, and contributing to evidence-based solutions to societal challenges.”

As well as excellence in research and the professional application of social science, the new Fellows have also made substantial contributions beyond academia, including in policy, public service, industry and civil society. Their practice and research findings help to address some of the major challenges facing communities, society, places and economies.

Dr Aaron Winter is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, focusing on race and anti-racism, its relationship with the mainstream in liberal democratic societies and the limitations of counterextremism and counterterrorism responses.

He said: “As an academic committed to understanding and addressing social problems and public engagement, I am honoured to have been conferred as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. I look forward to working with the Academy and other fellows to promote the Social Sciences and its importance for research, education, the public, policy and social change. I cannot think of a more urgent time to do so when the far right is on the rise, inequalities are increasing and the Social Sciences - which are so well placed to help understand and address these - are under attack.”

Dr Winter’s books include Historical Perspectives on Organised Crime and Terrorism (Routledge 2018), Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream (Verso 2020), which was translated into Spanish in 2023, and Researching the Far Right: Theory, Method and Practice (Routledge 2020). He has also published widely in journals such as Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, Ethnic and Racial Studies and the Journal of Political Ideologies, and in non-academic contexts such as The Independent, openDemocracy and The Big Issue. He also appears regularly in the media.

He is a trustee of the Runnymede Trust and Sociological Review Foundation, advisor to Cambridge OCR, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Identities and co-editor of the Manchester University Press book series Racism, Resistance and Social Change, and sits on the editorial board of Ethnic and Racial Studies and the Reactionary Politics Research Network. He was previously convenor of the Race and Ethnicity Study Group at the British Sociological Association (BSA), BSA Trustee, Associate Editor of Sociological Research Online, and member of the QAA Sociology Benchmarking group.