Dr Tom Haines-Doran is Y-PERN Policy Fellow for West Yorkshire, helping to foster relationships between the combined mayoral authority and academics, with particular research interests in the informal economy, future of work and childcare.
As the Y-PERN Policy Fellow for York and North Yorkshire, Tom is responsible for…
Providing knowledge brokerage and research capacity support in West Yorkshire. Tom is responsible for fostering relationships between the new combined mayoral authority and academics. Beyond this, he also responds to policy demand-led research within the region, and chairs the Y-PERN West Yorkshire Steering Group.
Tom’s most looking forward to…
Working with fellow academics and those ‘on the ground’ to identify where academic research support and engagement can help. Tom is also looking forward to applying the ‘systems of provision’ approach to regional policy questions. This approach is an especially powerful tool of political economy when applied to policy questions.
Key areas of focus for Tom are…
Tom works with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) on helping with academic evidence for its Economic Plan. This involved convening a roundtable in summer 2023 with WYCA officers, academic experts from the region, and Y-PERN staff. This was on the subject of three areas of research interest: the informal economy, the future of work, and childcare. This was followed, later in the year, by a call for evidence to West Yorkshire Universities on these topics, which generated responses from all universities in the West Yorkshire region.
The call for evidence work resulted in two main developments: a workshop on the future of work and the informal economy, to further identify evidence and research needs, and collaborating on a mapping of the ‘systems of provision of childcare’, in order to address fundamental policy questions. Tom is really looking forward to both, as it will help cohere expertise and emerging evidence from a number of major research projects across West Yorkshire universities. Tom is particularly looking forward to speaking with and learning from those at the coalface of childcare.
Tom joins us with a background in..
Political economy. Tom’s undergraduate degree was in Politics. After a few years working in various sectors, and travelling, Tom undertook a masters’ degree in international political economy, before moving into local government transport research. Tom then undertook a PhD in Economics at SOAS, before moving into transport research at the University of Leeds. He is the author of a number of academic journals, as well as a monograph.
