Head of College

Francis Davis – Head of Digby Stuart College
francis.davis@roehampton.ac.uk   |   

Francis Davis is Head of Digby Stuart College and Professor of Civic Leadership and International Studies at Roehampton, Honorary Professor in Public Policy and Communities at the University of Birmingham and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford. Since 2011 he has been a research Fellow at South Africa’s Helen Suzman Foundation.

A specialist in inclusive economies, enterprise, civic innovation and leadership he began his career working with the NGO Caritas, not least during the Yugoslavian wars of independence, and retains a strong commitment to the charities Remembering Srebrenica and Combat Stress. Francis has held public and ministerial appointments in the UK Departments of Local Government, Health, NHS and Work and Pensions and has served on working parties and commissions of Bishops Conferences, Caritas, Religious Orders, Austria’s Erste Stiftung as well as directing major initiatives in inter-religious dialogue and community cohesion for the Mayors of London and the West Midlands. Zambian born his 2019 study of the social protection needs of elderly Rwandan genocide survivors was the first of its kind.

Francis holds the MPA from Warwick Business School, a Phd from Warwick too, degrees in social policy, theology and English literature and is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. A wild swimmer his natural habitat is walking or swimming close to the Solent or in the South Downs National Park.