Matthew Quinn, CSaP Policy Fellow

Matthew is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of Cardiff, researching the opportunities for and barriers to linking the understandings of complex interrelated systems inherent in sustainability and ecology with mainstream public and academic discourse. He is interested in the history of thought that has shaped inherited orthodoxies across different disciplines, and have an initial focus on power, governance and bureaucracy; (alternative) economics; and behaviour, emotion and psychology in relation to sustainability.

Before joining the University of Cardiff, Matthew was Director, Environment in the Department for Natural Resources and Food in the Welsh Government, with responsibility for all aspects of environment policy, energy, climate change, and also for the Environment Bill in the new Welsh Government legislative programme. Previously he led the work on creating Natural Resources Wales, bringing together Forestry, Environment and Countryside Agencies into a single body.

After studying classics at Oxford, Matthew started his civil service career in 1986 in the former Department of the Environment in London; in 1990 he led part of the team that produced the first UK Environment White Paper, This Common Inheritance . He was subsequently Head of Develop­ment Planning where he oversaw the refresh of English planning policy, and Director (Environment and Transport) for the South West of England where he founded Sustainability South West .

Matthew came to Wales in 1998 to establish the Assembly Government’s first Strategic Policy Unit, moved to Environment policy in 2006, and was appointed Director in 2007 on the creation of the new Department.

Matthew has contributed to a range of journal articles and edited book chapters on planning, sustainability and governance. He is a Non Executive Director of the Gregynog Festival and has served as a Non Executive Director of the Carbon Trust and as a member of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Research Priorities Board.