Jonathan Roberts is Teaching Director and Senior Lecturer in Practice at the Marshall Institute. He leads the development of teaching activities at the Institute, where he has designed and developed the ground-breaking executive MSc programme in Social Business and Entrepreneurship (from 2018) and a Marshall Institute specialism within LSE’s Master of Public Administration programme, the MPA in Social Impact. He has received multiple teaching awards from LSE.
Jonathan holds a PhD from the Department of Social Policy at LSE, for which he received the Titmuss prize. He has taught and lectured at LSE on behavioural public policy, on social enterprise and on the relationship between government and the voluntary sector. He has also been a Teaching Fellow at the School of Public Policy, UCL, where he taught nonprofit and voluntary sector policy and management. He is a classicist by training, having received a BA (Hons) in Classics from the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining LSE he worked for a number of UK charities, a set of experiences which raised significant questions about the challenges and opportunities of private action for public benefit and which stimulated his academic teaching and research.
Jonathan’s research interests include hybrid organisations, motivations and altruism, and the role of social enterprises and mutual organisations in public service delivery. He has a particular interest in education, pre-school and family policy. His doctoral research explored how parents trust pre-school childcare provision. He has recently undertaken a study of ethical consumerism (with Professor Sir Julian Le Grand and Gauri Chandra), and was a major contributor to a study of European philanthropic foundations. He is currently researching hybrid organisations and innovative funding mechanisms for social enterprises and community businesses. His work has been published in social policy, education, sociology and public administration journals.
Jonathan serves as the chair of the governing body of a state primary school in south London.