The RES Council supervises and advises on the Society’s activities. It meets twice-yearly and consists of the President, President-elect, Immediate Past President, Life Vice Presidents, Honorary Treasurer, Chair of Trustees and thirty elected councillors (three of whom are appointed to the Trustee Board).
Chair of Trustees and Co-opted Trustee
Anton is Distinguished Honorary Professor in the Adam Smith Business School and Senior Fellow in the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow, since October 2025. He is President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Scotland’s National Academy). He was Principal and Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Economics at the University of Glasgow 2009 – 2025. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was Chair of the Russell Group of Universities from 2017 until 2020. He is a Governor of NIESR, a Member of the Governing Council of The Productivity Institute and was a Senior Advisor with Public First. He was awarded the honour of Commendatore of the Republic of Italy in 2008, and a Knighthood in 2017.
President
Tony Venables CBE is Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Econometric Society and the Regional Science Association and a Fellow and Trustee of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. He has held professorships at Manchester, Oxford, the LSE, and Southampton and served as Chief Economist in the UK Department for International Development. He has published extensively in international trade, spatial economics, natural resources, and economic development. Books include The spatial economy; cities, regions and international trade with M. Fujita and P. Krugman, and Multinationals in the World Economy with G. Barba Navaretti.
Past-President
Imran Rasul OBE is Professor of Economics at University College London, Director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Co-Director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Centre on Wealth Concentration, Inequality and the Economy. In these roles he has supported policy engagement among economists, advised early career researchers, and brought together research and education on the study of wealth concentration and economic inequality. He has served as a Council Member and Trustee of the Royal Economic Society (RES) from 2018-2023 and Chaired the RES Publications Committee from 2018-21.
Honorary Treasurer
Kate is Chief Economist at the Financial Conduct Authority, where she heads a division responsible for providing rigorous economic thinking, research, analysis, and advice to help the FCA deliver on its strategic objective of making financial services markets work well. Kate has nearly 20 years’ experience as an economist in roles spanning the public and private sector. Kate has undertaken several senior roles in government. She has published in The Economic Journal.
President-Elect
Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. She is Research Director of the Bennett School of Public Policy. Her own research focuses on the economics of AI and digital, and on economic measurement. Diane is currently a member of the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy Council, the Treasury/DSIT AI and Future of Work Unit, and advises the Competition and Markets Authority. She has served previously in a number of public service roles including as Vice Chair of the BBC Trust, member of the Competition Commission, the Natural Capital Committee and most recently the New Towns Taskforce. Diane was awarded a DBE in 2023 for her contribution to economics and public policy. She was a student at Brasenose College, Oxford, reading PPE (1978). She has a PhD in Economics from Harvard (1985).
Council member (until 2027)
Jo Blanden is Reader in Economics at the University of Surrey where she has worked since completing her PhD in Economics at UCL in 2005. She is a Research Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. Her research focuses on intergenerational mobility and related issues in the Economics of Education, including Early Years and the recent disruptions to education from the pandemic. She regularly provides advice to Government and she is a member of the ESRC peer review college.
Council member (until 2027)
Anita Charlesworth is Director of Research and the REAL Centre at the Health Foundation. She is Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham, Chair of the Office of Health Economics and specialist adviser to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee. She has a MSc in health economics and BA in social science. She has worked in government (an economist in DHSC/Director of Public spending in HM Treasury), pharmaceutical industry and the third sector.
Council member (until 2027)
Sriya Iyer is Professor of Economics and Social Science at the University of Cambridge; Fellow, St Catharine’s College and Deputy Director, The Keynes Fund. Her research encompasses development, economics of religion, demography and health. She read for economics degrees in Delhi, India and Cambridge, UK, and has taught at Cambridge for twenty years. She is a Research Fellow of CEPR; Pew Research Centre’s India Advisory Board; Deputy Programme Chair, RES Conference 2020; and serves on the editorial boards of three journals. Her recent books are on The Economics of Religion in India (Harvard) and Advances in the Economics of Religion (IEA, Palgrave).
Council member (until 2027), Trustee and Elections Officer
Melanie Jones is Professor of Economics at Cardiff Business School and Head of Economics Section. Her research interest is empirical labour economics, and she has worked on a range of policy relevant issues, including for the Low Pay Commission and the Office of Manpower Economics. She is currently an Associate Editor of the British Journal of Industrial Relations and a member of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration, ONS Economics Experts Working Group and National Statistician’s Inclusive Data Advisory Committee.
Council member (until 2027)
Ben Lockwood is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. He has held appointments at the Universities of Cambridge, London, and Exeter. His research is mainly in public economics and political economy and has been published in journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Economic Theory, and Review of Economics and Statistics. He has held editorial positions at Review of Economic Studies, & Economic Journal.
Council member (until 2027)
Anna Vignoles is Director of the Leverhulme Trust: one of the largest research funders in the UK. An education economist and previously a Professor at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on the relationship between educational achievement and social mobility and the role played by skills in the economy. She has advised numerous government departments, including the Department for Education, of Business, Innovation and Skills, and HM Treasury.
Council member (until 2028)
Arun Advani is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. He is also affiliated with the IFS, LSE International Inequalities Institute, CESifo, IZA, and the World Inequality Lab. He studies issues of tax compliance and tax design, with a particular focus on those with high incomes or wealth; and issues of education and skills development in the labour market. Together with Sarah Smith, he co-founded and co-chairs Discover Economics, a campaign to both increase access to economics, and increase the diversity of people who study and work in economics. At the RES, Arun was a member of the Schools sub-committee, and is on the DE Grants panel.
Council member (until 2028)
Parama Chaudhury is Professor at UCL and has experience in UCL’s BAME awarding gap project, helping a diverse range of colleagues to develop, use and disseminate good practice in economics education and widening participation initiatives, to further the RES’s work in this area. This builds on her work to date with the RES’ Education and Training Committee. She is also the Founding Director of CTaLE, and sits on the panel for the CORE Project’s Learning Committee.
Council member (until 2028) and Trustee
David Jaeger is Professor of Economics at University of St Andrews. His research, primarily focusing on labour economics, conflict, and applied econometrics, has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Labour Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of the American Statistical Association, among others. He is the Editor of the Scottish Journal of Political Economy. David is a Research Fellow at IZA and CEPR. Prior to moving to St Andrews he was Research Associate at the NBER.
Council member (until 2028)
Almudena Sevilla is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at LSE and a recipient of an ERC grant. Her research focuses on the areas of gender economics and human capital and is published in top economics journals. She has held positions at leading institutions such as University College London, the University of Oxford, and the US Congress. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University in 2004. Almudena is President-Elect of the Society of the Economics of the Household, and former Chair of the RES UK-Women in Economics Network (UK-WEN).
Council member (until 2028)
Misa Tanaka was Head of Research at the Bank of England, responsible for the Bank’s research strategy. She holds a D.Phil. in Economics from the University of Oxford and has several academic publications on financial regulation and the impact of climate change on central banks. She is the RES UK-Women in Economics Chair and a member of the RES Women’s Committee. She has previously served on the Research Accreditation Panel of the UK Statistics Authority.
Council member (until 2028)
Stephanie Von Hinke is Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol. Her research builds on the biomedical as well as economic and social sciences. She investigates the importance of parental investments, early life environments, genetics, and government policy in explaining individuals’ health and economic outcomes over the life course. She currently holds an ERC Starting Grant, examining the importance of the nature-nurture interplay in shaping individuals’ life chances. She is joint PI on an EU-funded Doctoral Network aiming to incorporate molecular genetic data into the social sciences.
Council member (until 2029)
Sonia Bhalotra is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. She is a labour economist with research expertise relating to gender, health and political representation. She currently holds an ERC Advanced Grant on the economics of violence against women. She leads the families stream of the ESRC research centre MiSoC at Essex and she leads the mental health and wellbeing stream of CAGE at Warwick. Through 2015-2021, Sonia was leading the health rights stream on an ESRC grant to the Human Rights Centre at Essex. Sonia is a Research Fellow at the IFS and CEPR, Fellow of the International Economic Association and the Academy of Social Sciences, and an Associate Editor of the Economic Journal.
Trustee & Council member (until 2029)
Council member (until 2029)
Hamish Low is Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Prior to this, he was the James Meade Professor of Economics and Head of Department at the University of Oxford. He was Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College and Research Fellow at the IFS and at the CEPR. He is a member of the Methods Advisory Group at the Department of Work and Pensions. His research analyses what sort of risks individuals and families face over their lifetimes, and the extent that self-insurance and government social insurance mitigates these risks. Hamish has worked with Prof Sarah Smith on the financial implications of the REF rules and the decline in funding for economic research in the UK.
Council member (until 2029)
Julia Darby, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Strathclyde, is a macroeconomist who focuses on labour market issues and fiscal policy. She’s previously worked at the Universities of Glasgow and Stirling and at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. As her department’s Director of Postgraduate Research, she recently received recognition for the exceptional support she provided to build students’ sense of community during the Covid pandemic. She is actively involved with the Scottish Graduate School in Social Sciences (an ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership), contributing to shaping student culture and support activity and as a pathway reviewer.
Council member (until 2029)
Maria Psyllou is a Senior Teaching Fellow of Economics and Public Policy at Imperial College London. Her research focuses on the economics of education. She leads the ‘Inspire’ Initiative at the RES UK WEN dedicated to inspiring young women in economics and empowering early career women economists. She is a mentor at the Women in Economics Initiative (WiE). Maria is co-founder and co-lead of the Birmingham Economics Education Seminars (BEES) with Tim Burnett and Wenyu Zang, an initiative developing cross-institutional economics of education research. A Discover Economics Academic Champion, she leads numerous school outreach initiatives, targeting young women and students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Council member (until 2029)
Katy Peters is Chief Economist at HM Revenue and Customs, using economics to enable better decision making and supporting numerous UK Budgets. She has provided advice on a wide range of issues including economic growth, the environment and housing. Katy has extensive experience of applied economics, having worked in the Department of Health, the Treasury, investment banking and the Bank of England. She uses large data sets and works with other professions, especially statistics and operational research, to raise standards in economics. She also leads a large community of economists, strengthening alternative routes into the economics profession.
Council member (until 2030)
Erin Hengel is an applied theoretical and empirical microeconomist and a lecturer in Economics at Brunel University of London. Her research focuses on labour economics and gender with a particular emphasis on better understanding the under-representation of women in academia, science and innovative sectors. Erin has been a member of the Royal Economic Society’s Women’s Committee since 2020, co-leads its sub-committee on Monitoring the Status of Women in Economics and co-authored its 2021 and 2023 reports surveying the status of women in economics in the UK.
Council member (until 2030)
Richard Hughes is Senior Economic Adviser at Taula Capital, a macro hedge fund based in London. He is also a Visiting Fellow of Practice at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and a Senior Fellow at the Kyiv School of Economics. From 2020 to 2025, Richard was Chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s independent official economic and fiscal forecaster. He has previously been Director of Fiscal Policy and Acting Chief Economist at HM Treasury, a Division Chief in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund, a Research Associate at the Resolution Foundation, an Advisor to the French Government, and a Visiting Lecturer at Sciences Po in Paris and the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford.
Council member (until 2030)
Council member (until 2030)
Climent Quintana-Domeque is Professor of Economics at the University of Exeter. He earned his PhD in Economics from Princeton University and has taught at Universitat d’Alacant and the University of Oxford. He is Subject Lead of Applied Microeconomics at Exeter, and his research examines diverse topics, from the effects of public infrastructure on the lives of the poor to the socioeconomic determinants of health. He serves as editor of the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics and contributes to global research networks like IZA. In 2024, he received the University of Exeter Supervisor of the Year Award.
Council member (until 2030)
Council member (until 2030)
Silvana Tenreyro is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, Fellow of the British Academy and Econometric Society and Honorary Foreign Member of the American Economic Association. She served as External Member of the Bank of England’s MPC (2017-2023) and is a former President of the European Economic Association. Currently she is Director of the CEPR IMF Programme, and executive board member of the IEA. She is the recipient of the Birgit Grodal Award, Banque de France and TSE Prize, Carl Menger Prize, and CEPR Policy-Maker-of-the-year Award. She was made CBE in 2023 for services to the economy. She obtained her PhD from Harvard University.
Council member (until 2031)
Council member (until 2031)
Council member (until 2031)
Denise Hawkes is Professor of Economics Education and Deputy Director of the Centre for Innovation, Leadership, Education and Development (I-LEAD) at King’s Business School. She is the Co-Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Network and a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society. Denise holds a PhD in Economics and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research in the economics of higher education focuses on the benefits of developing inclusive learning environments. She has extensive experience in academic leadership, mentoring and capacity building within higher education and is committed to advancing diversity and excellence in the economics profession.
Council member (until 2031)
Phillip Inman is The Guardian’s senior economics writer. He has been a financial journalist for the newspaper over the last 27 years. In his current role he covers a wide range of issues, from the economic situation in Russia (as part of the Guardian’s war coverage) to the domestic impact of UK budget measures and the role of the Bank of England. He has spent more than 30 years writing about the growing intergenerational wealth and income gap. He also sits on the policy committee of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.
Council member (until 2031)
Dina Rabie is an Assistant Professor in Economics at Northeastern University London and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), Department of Social Policy. She is also the Scientific Advisor and Co-founder of the Experimental and Behavioural Economics Laboratory (EBEL) at the British University in Egypt. Dina obtained her PhD in Economics from the University of Hamburg in 2021. Her research focuses on behavioural and experimental economics, examining individual decision-making, cultural influences, gender inequality, and pro-social behaviour, particularly in non-Western societies. She has published in leading journals including the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Economic Inquiry and Nature Human Behavior.
Council member (until 2031)
Kunal Sen was previously Director of United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), a world leading thinktank in development economics. He is Professor of Development Economics at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. He is former President of the British Association for South Asian Studies. His research areas are political economy, labour economics and international trade. Kunal Sen will bring to the RES his ability to bridge research and policy in an international setting and his knowledge of international development.
