Professor Steven Griggs

Professor

Digital, Tech, Innovation & Business

I have spent much of my career in town halls and communities exploring the workings of local government and the dynamics of collaborative policymaking. This has been matched with an engagement with the politics and policies of climate change and sustainability, notably in the field of aviation.

I continue to undertake policy development work with a number of local authorities and public sector organisations, as well as contributing to senior management leadership programmes. I have a well-established research partnership with the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) and I am a Faculty member on the Local Government Executive Leadership Programme sponsored by the Commercial Services Group.

I was a member of the Advisory Group for the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Public Policy and Public Administration and one of the founding editors of the peer-reviewed journal, Critical Policy Studies.

Professional memberships and activities

Political Studies Association

Regional Studies Association

Academic qualifications

PhD Government, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1999.

Expertise

Local government – collaborative policymaking - political leadership – critical policy studies – climate change and sustainability – aviation and airport expansion

Research interests

My research interests focus on critical accounts of policymaking and poststructuralist approaches to democratic policy change. I am currently working on local political leadership and devolution, economic renewal and the new municipalism, and the governance of climate change.

Enterprise and commercial interests

I have worked extensively with councils and organisations across the UK on member and leadership development programmes, as well as policy formulation and programme/policy evaluations.

Publications

Griggs, S. and Howarth, D. (2025) Moving In and Out of the Field: Discourse, Logics and Critical Explanation, in C. Einfeld and H. Sullivan (eds) How to Conduct Interpretive Research, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 48-64.

Giovannini, Arianna and Griggs, S. (2024) Addressing the Elephant in the Room: What's the Local in Local Government Studies? Local Government Studies, 50:6, pp. 989-97.

Barnett, N.J., Giovannini, A. and Griggs, S. (2024) Serial Adapters? Local Government Chief Officers and the Navigation of Space and Time. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 42:2, pp. 215-30.

Barnett, N., Griggs, S., Howarth, D., and Rose, J. (2024) Striving to thrive. Councillors’ reflections on local democracy, APSE: Manchester.

Lorne, C, Papanastasiou, N and Griggs, S. (2024) The whereabouts of politics and policy in troubling times. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 42:2, pp. 171-78.

Griggs, S. and Howarth, D. (2023) Contesting Aviation Expansion Depoliticisation, Technologies of Government and Post-Aviation Futures. Bristol University Press / Policy Press, Bristol. ISBN 978-1447344285.

Barnett, D., Giovannini, A., Griggs, S., Howarth, D., Jeffares, S. and Love, C. (2023) Under pressure. The future of councillor-officer relationships, APSE: Manchester.

Davies J. S., Blanco, I., Bua, A., Chorianopoulos, I., Cortina-Oriol, M., Feandeiro, A., Gaynor, N., Gleeson, B., Griggs, S., Hamel, P., Henderson, H., Howarth, D., Keil, R., Pill, M., Salazar, Y., Sullivan, H. (2022) New Developments in Urban Governance. Rethinking Collaboration in the Age of Austerity. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Giovannini, A. and Griggs, S. (2022) Rethinking levelling up. Caring for place, empowering connectors and redesigning our culture of governance, Manchester: IPPR-North.

steven.griggs@staffs.ac.uk