Dr Tom Fisher FRSA

Dr Tom Fisher is a political sociologist and evaluation specialist regularly commissioned to lead programmes of research for international bodies, national governments and charities. Over the course of 15 years, Tom has built an international profile as a social researcher evaluating government health, social and security policy interventions, focusing on complex programmes in which impact is difficult to evidence.

Tom has worked on a wide range of policy fields, from interfaith dialogue and extremism in the Middle East to poverty and migrant integration in English cities. He uses evaluation as a mechanism of understanding the actual manifestations of policies as they are implemented, improving the understanding of social and security issues in policy circles. Always working as part of a team of evaluation researchers, his approach is to get as close to programmes as viable, using inclusive, ethnographic and realist methods to understand interventions from the inside.

At Coventry University, Tom teaches on Masters’ programmes related to diversity, inclusion and social policy as well as delivering high-profile training, consultancy and policy support to a wide range of policy leaders. He has spent the last 7 years focused on evaluating a range of preventing and countering violent extremism programmes, working in the UK, Europe, East Africa and Asia.

Tom has worked on a range of projects with RUSI on issues of law enforcement, CVE and protective security. In his spare time, he holds a range of advisory and voluntary roles, including as a trustee of a refugee charity.