Ben is currently a Professor in Social Science and Health in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King's College London, and co-leads the Work, welfare reform and mental health programme within the ESRC Centre for Society & Mental Health. He is also co-lead of the 'WelfareExperiences' project, a large mixed-methods coproduced comparison of how it feels to claim benefits in five European countries - the project website will be launched early in 2025.

Until July 2022, Ben was a Reader in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Kent, where he helped co-found the University of Kent's Q-Step centre. For a time in 2015-16 he was also on secondment as a Policy Advisor at the Department of Work and Pensions.

His personal website is available at https://www.benbgeiger.co.uk/, and a full list of publications is available from http://www.benbgeiger.co.uk/publications.htm

Research

He has a wide range of research interests, currently focused on:

• Benefits/Social security
• Mental Health
• Disability
• Employment
• Decent work & economic growth (SDG 8)

Research Groups

Ben co-leads the ‘Work, welfare reform and mental health’ programme within the ESRC Centre for Society & Mental Health.

Teaching

Postgraduate

• 7SSHM504 Quantitative Data Analysis
• 7SSHM507 Data Manipulation and Management

Expertise and Public Engagement

Ben has done public engagement work with lots of different audiences:

• With policymakers: Ben worked on secondment at DWP in 2015-16, and continues to have regular meetings with DWP as well as other official bodies like the OBR, Audit Office, Parliamentary Select Committees etc.
• With the general public: Ben blogs at Inequalities and has written for e.g. the Guardian (see a full list of non-academic publications is available).
• With others: Ben regularly speaks to charities like Mind that are members of the Disability Benefits Consortium, and claimant- or disabled-person led groups such as the Committee on Social Security led by Experts by Experience, Chronic Illness Inclusion and Disability Rights UK.

Further details

See Ben's research profile