Dr Beverley Searle

Profile

I graduated from the University of York with a BA(Hons) in Social Policy (2001) and PhD (2005).  I held Postdoctoral Research Fellow positions at the Universities of Durham (2004-2009) and St Andrews (2009-2012), where I also held the position of Acting Head of the Centre for Housing Research.  In 2013 I was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Dundee.  I was the Head of Geography & Environmental Science at Dundee (2016-2018) and promoted to Reader in 2022.  Following a move back to York, I joined the University of Leeds as Research Fellow in December 2023.   

Responsibilities

• Developing a measure of Readiness for Net Zero

Research interests

I am motivated by a vision of a wellbeing future, helping to inform how to achieve significant and extensive societal change towards more socially and environmentally sustainable futures. In particular, understanding wellbeing as a system and narrative of transformational change and the role of wellbeing in individual decisions, motivations and behaviours.  My approach is to explore wellbeing: as an outcome (how events/ circumstances impact wellbeing); as a precursor (how wellbeing impacts ability to function in society); and as an alternative narrative for sustainable futures (a wellbeing economy).  

I engage with quantitative and qualitative methods when questioning and challenging dominant ideas and social norms about what contributes to human wellbeing and welfare and have explored this through a critical analysis of asset-based welfare for example:  housing wealth, welfare and wellbeing (2009; 2012; 2013); assets, debt and poverty (2014; 2017); and intergenerational justice (2014) including an edited collection on Generational Interdependencies (2018). This is complemented by a more recent focus on human-environment relationships and sustainability with regard to community resilience (2018; 2021); and the transformational changes needed to address global challenges (2020; 2021), including lead editor of A Modern Guide to Wellbeing Research (eElgar, 2021,).

I currently work in the ESRC funded Centre for Joined-Up Sustainability Transformations (JUST).  JUST is focused on the pursuit of sustainability transformations that are people-centred, ‘joined-up’ and socially just.  I am based in the quantitative team which will produce an extensive database mapping the ‘readiness’ of different places in relation to the net zero challenge.  The concept of ‘readiness’ will be measured from a wide range of open source official statistics ‘ground-truthed’ by qualitative community-focused research. 

I previously worked on Wellbased, an EU project on health and energy poverty.  I was responsible for coordination of qualitative analysis using a realist evaluation of energy poverty alleviation initiatives in 6 European Cities. 

Qualifications

• PGCert (2009), Durham
• PhD (2005), York
• BA(Hons) Social Policy (2001), York

Professional memberships

• HEA Fellow