Shamit Saggar

Shamit Saggar is the Director of the Public Policy Institute and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Western Australia. Visiting Professor at King’s College, London, and Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Essex. He has also worked in senior roles in government, commerce, regulation and philanthropy.

He was previously a Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Essex; Director of the ESRC South-East Social Science Network Doctoral Training Partnership; Director of the Policy Unit at the Institute for Social and Economic Research; Senior Policy Advisor in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office; ESRC Knowledge Exchange Fellow with HM Government; Professor of Political Science, University of Sussex; Reader in Political Behaviour at Queen Mary, University of London; Harkness Fellow at UCLA; Yale World Fellow at Yale University; and Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the University of Toronto. 

Professor Saggar has held chairs at Sussex and Essex Universities before taking up a chair at the University of Western Australia in 2018. He has published five single-authored academic books, edited two volumes, over 60+ academic journal papers and chapters, and 20+ policy reports with think-tanks and foundations. His subject expertise lies in the areas of migration, public policy, regulation, extremism and counter-terrorism, political participation and public attitudes. 

He has taken an active part in public leadership board roles. Since coming to Australia, these include the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (Migration Advisory Committee and Trustee) and The Conversation Australia Editorial Board. In the UK these included the Financial Services Authority; the Solicitors Regulation Authority; the Law Society Legal Complaints Service (Chairman); the Campaign for Social Science (Chairman); the National Asylum Commission; the Better Regulation Commission; the National Consumer Council; the Whittington Hospital Trust; the Peabody Trust; the Accountancy Foundation Ethics Standards Board; the Institute for Citizenship; the Foreign Policy Centre Global Britons Programme; the Royal National Institute for the Blind; and the RSA Migration Commission. He was previously Chairman of UPP Group Holdings Ltd. 

He has also held advisory roles with Unbound Philanthropy, Demos, Policy Exchange, the Institute for Public Policy Research, Policy Network, Fabians and British Future, and served as a Special Advisor to the Commonwealth Secretariat/Sen Commission and to the House of Common’s Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation. 

He is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and in 2017 he was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to social science and public policy.

• Director, UWA Public Policy Institute
• Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, UWA School of Social Sciences
• Professor Strategy and Management, UWA Business School
• Research Fellow, UWA Africa Research and Engagement Centre

• Public policy
• Migration
• Regulation
• Extremism and counter-terrorism
• National security
• Climate change
• Machinery of government 
• Think-tanks and knowledge networks
• Political participation and public attitudes
• Indian Ocean Rim