Dr Matthew Ryan PhD, MSc, BSc
UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Associate Professor in Governance and Public Policy, Co-Director of the Centre for Democratic Futures, Policy Director at the Web Science Institute

Matthew Ryan is Associate Professor in Governance and Public Policy.
My research on democratic innovations tries to figure out how people can have control over the decisions that affect their lives.
I first came to Southampton in 2008 and undertook doctoral research as a Social Sciences PhD Fellow between 2009 and 2015. My research crosses several disciplinary boundaries with a focus on innovative research methods. I am Co-Director of the Centre for Democratic Futures, a collective dedicated to analysing, imagining, sustaining, augmenting, and expanding Democracy. Since January 2021 I have been Policy Director at the Web Science Institute an established world-leading institute dedicated to bringing socio-technical expertise to explore the development of the Web. Since January 2020 I have been a UKRI Future Leader Fellow leading the Rebooting Democracy project which aims to understand which innovations in public participation restore and sustain democracy.
Qualifications
PhD Politics (Southampton)
MSc Citizenship and Democracy (Southampton)
BSc Government and Public Policy (Cork)