Alan Cribb is an applied philosopher with a particular interest in health and education policy, health services, and higher and professional education.

In recent years he has been working on philosophical issues in healthcare improvement, shared decision-making and collaborative working. This includes studies of changing cultures and models of professionalism in both health and education settings. He has also published extensively on ethics in public health, medicine, nursing and pharmacy.

His research has been enabled and supported by funding from the AHRC, ESRC, Wellcome Trust, Health Foundation, Leverhulme Trust, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Nuffield Foundation, National Science Foundation and Cancer Research UK.

Alan’s career began at the University of Manchester where he completed his PhD in philosophy and was Deputy Director of the Education and Child Studies Research Group in the Department of Epidemiology and Social Oncology and a Fellow of the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy.

He moved to King's in 1989 as a ‘New Blood’ lecturer in what is now the School of Education, Communication and Society and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics. He co-founded the Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) in 1996, and was its co-director until 2024. He is currently Professor of Bioethics and Education in CPPR.

Alan was one of the founding editors and subsequently editor-in-chief of Health Care Analysis: An International Journal of Health Care Philosophy and Policy, a journal committed to bridging the gap between applied philosophy and policy/ practice. This reflects his strong interests in ‘empirical ethics’ and in ‘translating’ academic scholarship into practical fields. These interests have led to visiting positions at UK and international universities including five years as a Professorial Fellow at the Health Foundation and Imperial College London.

He has worked on values and ethics for the Royal Pharmaceutical Council, been a member of the Board of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine and is currently a member of the Patient and Carer Network and the Committee on Ethical Issues in Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians.

Research interests

• Applied philosophy
• Policy
• Healthcare
• Higher Education

Alan's research relates to applied philosophy and health policy. He has a particular interest in developing interdisciplinary scholarship that links philosophical, social science and professional concerns, and has pursued this interest through writing about health care ethics, health promotion, psychosocial oncology, health economics, higher education and medical education.

Teaching

• Public health ethics
• Philosophy of health

PhD supervision

Alan enjoys supervising doctoral students.

Completed theses include studies of:

• nursing and medical school leadership;
• ethics education for general practice;
• and personalisation in education.

Current projects include:

• the reframing of paediatric professionalism in the light of child poverty and the social determinants of health;
• and ‘epistemic paternalism’ in science communication.

Further information

For further details please see Alan's  Research Staff Profile.