Professor Karen Salt

Professor Karen Salt specialises in collective governance, systems transformation and sustainable change. She is currently Professor of Culture, Place and Communities at Manchester Metropolitan University where she focuses on place-based research and ethical partnerships between universities and communities.

As a sector leader and trained sociologist, Salt brings her leadership and methodological creativity to MMU, where she will develop interdisciplinary projects similar to the cross UKRI-funded The Trust Map, where she led a multi-sited team to investigate the formation and loss of trust in public bodies and governance structures by marginalised communities and the ways that technology might be harnessed as a tool for reconnection. She will also work across faculties at MMU and the wider region as a collaborator on projects that amplify the recommendations captured in Common Cause Research, Salt’s Arts and Humanities Research Council funded collaborative project exploring where and how ‘common cause’ can be made between change agents in universities and communities.  

Nearly all of her current and past projects involve a mix of community-embedded or community-led research teams and embody her commitment to re-imagining who can engage in research and contribute to knowledge-production. This same approach can be seen in her consultations and advisory roles where she has proven herself an adept ‘critical friend’ and rigorous methodological thinker in her work with a range of organisations, agencies and public bodies.

Salt is a former member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Advisory Board, a former member of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Peer Review College and an active reviewer for such funders and publishers as the European Research Council, Leverhulme Trust and Cambridge University Press. She contributes to policymaking in her role driving UK Research and Innovation’s cross-organisational efforts to support flourishing international partnerships and collaborations. 

Outside of academia and policymaking, she is a proud Trustee of the Williamson Trust, a charity that promotes the health of individuals, through supporting healthy environments, healthy communities and healthy foods. One of its recent initiatives is a joint funding programme for community-led projects with the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She is also an avid reader and advocate for the power of libraries.

With over 30 years of experience in community development, inclusive policy-making and novel solutions, Salt continues to work closely with leaders across Government, academia, civil society and industry.

Collective governance, community activism, institutional transformation, historical change, large-scale systems, intergenerational justice, ecological futures