Skip to main content
Huw Beynon DSc, ACSS, FRSW

Huw Beynon DSc, ACSS, FRSW

Emeritus Professor

School of Social Sciences

Overview

I was born and brought up in Ebbw Vale when it was a thriving coal and steel town on the north eastern rim of the South Welsh coalfield. That place, and the ways that is changed has affected the way I have developed as a sociologist. I have worked in five universities in the UK and I have conducted empirical work in and around these places. In this have worked with local community groups, trades unions and public policy officials to seek to improve economic and social conditions and the life chances of disadvantaged people in disadvantaged places.

Research

I am best known as an industrial sociologist and for my research into the experience of work, trade unions and organisational change. I have combined this with a keen interest in historical sociology and the impact of place and social class upon social and economic life. "Working for Ford" was one of my first books and I have just puiblished (with Ray Hudson) a book called The Shadow of the MIne:Coal and the End of Industrial Britain   which looks at changes on the old coalfields of South Wales and Durham. This book and its reviews are more fully discussed on my personal website. I continue to work with colleagues on issues realting to the legacy iof coal  mining and the more general impact of deindustrialisation in South Wales.

Biography

Honours and awards

  • Elected to Academy of Social Sciences 2000
  • Honorary Doctor of Letters, Durham University 2013
  • Founding Fellow Learned Society of Wales 2010

Professional memberships

British Sociological Association

Academic positions

  • Professor and Founding Director of WISERD, 
  • Professor and Founding Director Cardiff School of Social Sciences, 
  • Professor and Research Dean University of Manchester,
  • Reader Durham University,
  • Associate Professor University of Southern Illinois, USA, 
  • Simon Research Fellow University of Manchester, 
  • Lecturer Bristol University.

Committees and reviewing

At Cardiff I have served on the University Board for thee years when I was Chair of the Heads of School committee; member of promotions committee,research committee, and many ad hoc committees 1999-2010.

External profiles