Professor Rob Flynn
Professor of Sociology
Crescent House 601
T +44 (0)161 295 0446
F +44 (0)161 295 5077
I have a number of teaching and research interests. Previously I have carried out studies in urban sociology and the sociology of the welfare state. I have also undertaken several projects in the field of health service studies, looking at the reorganisation of the National Health Service and the impact of the quasi-market and contract culture on medical professionals. More recently I have been involved in a major national research programme on sustainable energy, working with other colleagues in the UK Sustainable Hydrogen Energy Consortium. Currently, my main focus is on public perceptions of risk, and public engagement in new energy technologies. More generally, I am interested in questions about risk and trust, governmentality and the regulation of professionals, and the sociology of public policy-making.
Supervision
I am particularly interested in supervising students wishing to carry out research on public attitudes to energy use and climate change, public perceptions of risk in new technologies, and the management and regulation of medical professionals.
Modules Convened
- Risk Society
- Ethnographic Methods
Administrative Posts
- Chair, University Research Ethics Panel
Recent Publications
Flynn, R., P. Bellaby, and M. Ricci. 2008. Environmental citizenship and public attitudes to hydrogen energy technologies. Environmental Politics 17, no. 5 (November): 766–83.
Greenhalgh, J., R. Flynn, A.F. Long, and S. Tyson. 2008. Tacit and encoded knowledge in the use of standardised outcome measures in multidisciplinary team decision making: A case study of in-patient neurorehabilitation. Social Science and Medicine 67, no. 1 (July): 183–94.
Flynn, R., and P. Bellaby, eds. 2007. Risk and the public acceptance of new technologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Flynn, R. 2006. Risk and health. In Beyond the risk society, eds G. Mythen and S. Walklate. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Flynn, R., P. Bellaby, and M. Ricci. 2006. Risk perception of an emergent technology. Forum for Qualitative Research/Forum Qualitative Forschung 7, no. 1.
For more information please see my SEEK page.
External Responsibilities
- Associate, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (Manchester)
- Member, Advisory Group for NHS Service Delivery Programme project, National Primary Care Research and Development Centre, University of Manchester
- Member, British Sociological Association
- Member, Social Policy Association
- Member (2001-2006) then Chair (2006-2008) of Editorial Board of Sociology of Health and Illness
- Member, Society for Risk Analysis
- External Examiner, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University