Specialist social care academic and researcher and Deputy Director, Social Care and Society.  Leads on research capacity development in social care through: management and supervision of staff; ensuring grant funding; and strategic planning and managment.

Collaborates and leads externally, in the NIHR infrastructure and internationally promoting capacity for social care research and influencing practice and skills development, particularly in the Adult Social Care workforce.

Research portfolio has included: service evaluation for adults with serious and longstanding mental health problems; older people and long-term care; psychological and social care services for military veterans; cost-effectiveness analyses (with a particular focus on social care); policy evaluations; preference elicitation studies; dementia home support; preventative assessment in adults and older people.  Paul also works actively with user and carers groups in public participation and in particular evidencing new and inovative ways to promote public involvement and engagement in research.  Member of the Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Greater Manchester, Healthy Ageing Co-Investigator team. 

Current work is applying data analytic and predictive modelling techniques to routine administrative data in Adult Social Care, to assist local authority Data Intelligence Teams in their enquiries into intensive social care use, inequalities, and demand management.  Collaborates with other universities in developing predictive techniques in the sector, for example using agent-based models to examine informal carer capacity in the UK, to inform central government and local authorities of future demand and capacity in Adult Social Care. 

For Teaching & Learning:

• Dissertation supervisor and examiner for MA Social Work students and developing research-informed teaching.
• Teaching: Development of Social Welfare Services in Social Political & Organisational Contexts of Social Work (SOWK 60662), MA Social Work.  

  NURS60016 MRes Unit Quantitative design and analysis: Experimental Design 1 & 2.

• PhD supervisor and examiner for students at Manchester and other universities.
• Tutor for Years 1 and 2 Personal Excellence Path (PEP) MBChB students.
• Cohort PGR Advisor/Tutor, Division of Nursing Midwifery and Social Work

Paul graduated from the University of Lancashire in 1989 with a First Class Honours degree in Applied Social Science and worked in social care, and as a psychiatric and medical social worker, including statutory work and assessment of deliberate self harm of patients attending Accident & Emergency departments. He has held research appointments previously at the Institute of Psychiatry, London and St James's Hospital, Leeds and holds an MSc in Psychiatric Social Work and a PhD in Community Medicine (Psychiatry) 

Currently: Specialist senior social care research advisor for the NIHR Research Support Service and Specialist Centre for Social Care.  Social Care Specialty Lead for the NIHR Northwest Regional Research Delivery Network (RDN)

Analysis of routinely collected social care data and predictive analytics in Adult Social Care; home support and community initiatives for dementia; measurement of outcomes and well-being in dementia, particularly utility measurement for economic evaluation; evaluating integrated care; measurement of risk, frailty and social vulnerability in older people; cost-effectiveness analysis, with particular reference to social care; evaluating inovative public participation and involvement initatives.

Professor Catherine Robinson, Director Social Care and Society, University of Manchester

Manchester City Council 

Sight & Mind CIC (Cecilia Toole, CEO), Merseyside  

Professor Will Dixon, Chair in Digital Epidemiology, University of Manchester

Made by Mortals CIC, Ashton, Greater Manchester

Professor Ian Philp, Age Care Technologies

Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Member, Public and Community Involvement and Engagement Champions Network BMH Athena SWAN | Public Community Involvement and Engagement (PCIE) Champions Network (manchester.ac.uk)

Chair, Research Sub-Group, Social Care Innovators, Institute of Health and Social Care Management 

Member of Senior Leadership Team, British Society of Gerontology (BSG) Ageing Business & Society Special Interest Group 

Review Panel Member, NIHR Pre-doctoral Local Authority Fellowship (PLAF) scheme.

Member, National Skills for Care Adult Social Care Workforce Strategy Academic and Research Panel (January 2024 - present).

Research Partner, Age Care Technologies International ACT Assessment: ACT-ICOPE International Research Network (https://agecaretechnologies.org/); Professor Ian Philp, CEO. Winner of the 2021 Healthy Ageing Innovation Prize of the United Nations World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS). 

Member, DEMON Network: an international network applying data science to dementia and dementia trials (DEMON | DEMON Network (demondementia.com)

Accredited Safe Researcher (41258), Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Multivariate and multivariable statistical models, including relative weights metrics, prediction analytics, calibration indices; measures of agreement; cost-effectiveness evaluation; cost-utility measurement; data envelopment analysis; performance measurement techniques; policy analysis.

• PhD Community Medicine (Psychiatry), University of Manchester 2007
• MSc Psychiatric Social Work, University of Manchester  1995
• BA (Hons) Applied Social Science, First Class, University of Central Lancashire  1989
• Certificate of Qualification in Social Work, University of Central Lancashire  1989