Laurie Taylor

Laurie Taylor is visiting professor in the department of politics and sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London. He was recently made a Fellow of Birkbeck College and also holds visiting professorships at the London Institute and Westminster University. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Leicester, Nottingham and Central England. His contributions to social science were recognised in 2003 by his election to the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. His contribution to business development was recognised last year by his appointment as an ambassador for Investors in People.

Before entering academic life, he had eight years industrial and sales experience, worked as a librarian in Liverpool, taught in a London comprehensive school, and was a professional actor with Joan Littlewood's famous Theatre Workshop Company at Stratford East. He is the author of fourteen books on motivation, change, communication, and personal identity, and is a regular contributor to the New Statesman, The Independent, and The Times. His weekly satirical column on university life has been appearing in the Times Higher Education Supplement for the last twenty years. His most recent book (written with his son, Matthew) was called What Are Children For?

For the past twenty-five years he has been heard on BBC Radio 4 in such programmes as Stop the Week, The Radio Programme, News Quiz, Speaking as an Expert, Afternoon Shift, and Room for Improvement. He can currently be heard every Wednesday afternoon on R4 presenting Thinking Allowed, a programme devoted to society and social change. He has made several major television documentaries on such topics as crime, drinking behaviour, and the purpose of education. His last major film (broadcast in December 2003) was a C4 documentary on the meaning of celebrity. He is currently working on a documentary for C4 concerned with the inadequacies of palliative care in the UK.

In the last twelve years he has addressed over five hundred major national and international companies with his after dinner speech or on such topics as change, motivation, teamwork, new technology, risk, and communication.