Cardiff University academic takes on prestigious new role

A Cardiff University academic has been announced as new Chair of the Political Studies Association of the UK (PSA).

Head of Politics and International Relations, Professor Roger Awan-Scully, will lead the learned society over the next three years. Professor Claire Dunlop at the University of Exeter joins him as Vice Chair.

A long-serving and active member of the PSA, Professor Awan-Scully brings a wealth of academic, communications and professional skills to the role. He is a past winner of the association’s Political Studies Communicator award, and in 2019 also won the National Mentoring Award in the University category.

He said: “The Political Studies Association is the UK’s principal learned society for those who study and teach politics, and one of the largest such societies in the world. To be asked to lead the association is thus one of the highest honours that any political scientist can receive.

“I feel very honoured to follow in the long line of incredibly distinguished scholars who have chaired the PSA. It is also an honour to be the first person from a Welsh university to lead the association.

“The three themes I emphasised in my application for Chair of the PSA were Excellence, Sustainability and Diversity. I am very much looking forward to working with the association’s fantastic staff, with its wonderful board of trustees including incoming Vice-Chair Claire Dunlop, and with its growing and increasingly diverse membership, to drive forward improvements in all three of these areas.”

Professors Awan-Scully and Dunlop were appointed by the PSA’s Executive Committee after a competitive process. They will take up the office at the association’s Annual Assembly in April at its annual international conference in Edinburgh, at which the current Chair Professor Angelia Wilson and Vice Chair Feargal Cochrane will reach the end of their terms.