Dr Justyna Bandola-Gill

PhD in Science and Technology Studies, University of Edinburgh, 2019

MSc in Science and Technology Studies (with Distinction), University of Edinburgh, 2015

MA in Political Science (with Distinction), Jagiellonian University, 2010

Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (with Distinction), University of Birmingham, 2025

Justyna joined the School of Social Policy and Society in 2022 as an Assistant Professor in Sociology and Social Policy. She previously held a Postdoctoral Research position in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, where she also obtained her MSc and PhD.

Justyna is passionate about making our work sustainable – both socially and environmentally and currently acts as the Academic Lead for Sustainability for the School of Social Policy and Society.

Justyna is currently on research leave until Summer 2027.

Justyna welcomes applications from PhD students interested in conducting projects that relate to her core interests, for example:

• Evidence-based policymaking
• Digital Governance, Data and AI
• Global Governance and Global Social Policy
• Science Policy and Research Evaluation

Current projects

Transforming Evidence Synthesis: AI and the (R)evolution of the Evidence Ecosystem (PI), ESRC
This research investigates the implications of AI on the practice of evidence synthesis and the broader research ecosystem -including evolving methods and routines, skills and career trajectories, professional norms and standards, and academic institutions and cultures.

The key innovation of this project is its comparative focus on two types of settings in evidence synthesis: 1.) Settings where practices have been ‘augmented’ by introducing AI tools to enhance some elements of the review process; 2.) Settings where practices are being ‘replaced’ by the automated evidence infrastructure for real-time evidence synthesis. Through this comparison, the project will offer significant new knowledge and theoretical language to capture both the micro- and macro implications of AI in research synthesis and the broader research landscape. 

Everything we (think we) know about Narrative CVs, UKRI Metascience grant (Co-I)
The use of narrative CVs to assess researchers has become a widespread practice in academia in the UK and worldwide in recent years, though rigorous evaluation of the policy is lacking. A number of studies have already been conducted or are in progress: these cover multiple organisations, narrative CV formats, uses and evaluation methodologies. The small scale of many of the studies limits the questions that can be answered within the individual data sets, but the rich variety across them means that, when brought together, the data could be extremely powerful.

This research aims to produce a comprehensive and coherent community-owned understanding of the implementation of narrative CVs (NCVs) to support evidence base and decision-making. 

Narrative CVs – evaluative storytelling and the construction of academic value, SRHE (PI)
The project explores the emergent practices of evaluation involved in the assessment of narrative CVs. This CV format, recently introduced by UKRI, asks researchers for a descriptive story of their contributions to the field, leadership potential and wider societal impact, rather than just a list of publications and grants.

The aim of this innovation is to reconfigure the reward and recognition system in order to capture a diversity of contributions, practices and career paths in academia. The goal of this SRHE project is to explore the narrative evaluative inquiry involved in the assessment of narrative CVs to investigate whether this format indeed lends itself to an appreciation of different values in academic life and whether (and how) it extends the idea of ‘excellence’ beyond metrics. 

Awards

• Newer Researcher Award (2022) Society for Research in Higher Education
• Carol Weiss Prize at Evidence and Policy (2021)
• ECPR Excellent Paper Award awarded by the Knowledge Politics and Policy Standing Group (2020)