Professor Colin Talbot has had an unusual career. After leaving school at 16 to go to work in pharmaceuticals research he spent two decades working in a variety of roles, including 5 years as a trade union official and another five as a manager in local government.
He entered academia in 1990 as a senior lecturer in public services management at the Southbank University, London. He rose rapidly to become a professor of public policy and management at the then University of Glamorgan in south Wales in 1995 and later similar roles at the University of Nottingham and then University of Manchester.
He has also been a visiting professor at City University, Hong Kong, Australian National University, and Syracuse University, New York state. He has also been an invited guest at universities and of governments including in France Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, the USA, Bangladesh, India, Israel and Libya.
These international engagements have included work as an adviser to the World Bank, OECD, the Treasury Board (Canada), Office of Management and Budget (USA), Finance Ministry (Japan, and France), etc.
In the UK, Prof Talbot has carried out extensive research and/or advisory roles with local government, health services, local government and various criminal justice and intelligence agencies. He has also been an expert witness to Select Committees in Parliament more than two dozen times and a special advisor to two Committees.
Most recently he has also become engaged with various parts of the co-operative movement and interested in the interface been local public services and co-operative and community organisations. He contributes to Co-operative News magazine and co-hosts their podcast.
Colin likes the term “pracademic” – someone who has worked on both sides of the practice-academia divide. He was first called this by his friend and colleague the late Professor Beryl Radin – another pracademic. He and Beryl were at the time (late 1990s) doing various pieces of work with the Clinton administration in Washington.
His major focus has been the restructuring of governments and their agencies in the 1990s and beyond, on which he’s published several books of comparative research with the late Professor Christopher Pollitt. He’s also written extensively about performance measurement.
He has a side-interest in human social evolution and its impact on human organisations. Which he’s also written a book about.