A senior figure within the government’s Levelling Up department has been appointed an Honorary Professor at AMBS.
Ed Whiting, who will take up the role within the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR) at AMBS, is currently a Director within the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities where he helps the public sector engage with the key levelling up goals of raising economic growth and living standards across the UK regions.
An expert in science policy and strategy, he was previously Director of Strategy at global charitable foundation the Wellcome Trust. In this role he led the creation of Wellcome’s 2020 strategy to focus its £1.6bn funding on supporting science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone.
He has also previously been a Deputy Principal Private Secretary to former Prime Minister David Cameron, where he was responsible for supporting the Prime Minister on public services policy decisions and implementation. Ed has also worked for many years in the Treasury.
Rich ways of working
In his role at AMBS Ed says he intends to work closely with academics from across the School. “I have always been interested in the intersection of public service and academia, and through this AMBS role I’m looking forward to exploring some really rich ways of working together with academics. Academia can be a great place for creative enlightening conversations to happen and I hope to access different perspectives and ways of thinking about public policy issues.”
