George Gaskell

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George Gaskell
George Gaskell in 1983
Education	University College London
Known for	toblerone model of social representations
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Workplaces	Institute of Social Psychology, London School of Economics
Thesis	An empirical investigation of social and individual factors influencing decisions on risk related items
Doctoral advisor	Rob Farr
Doctoral students	Nicola Morant, Gordon Sammut

George Gaskell is a British Emeritus Professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Formerly Director of the Methodology Institute, which he established with Colm O’Muircheartaigh, he was Pro-director for Planning and Resources and a member of the LSE Council and Court of Governors.

He is a member of the Advisory Group on Risk Communication of the European Food Safety Authority and Chair of the International Advisory Committee of the Centre for Society and Genomics in the Netherlands. He was vice-chair of the European Commission’s Science and Society Advisory Committee for FP6 and a member of the Science in Society Committee of the Royal Society and the Economic and Social Research Council’s Evaluation Committee.

Biography

George Gaskell graduated from University College London in 1969, and completed his PhD in social psychology under the supervision of Professor Rob Farr in 1973. He joined the Institute of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics in 1971.

Research and Intellectual Interests

George Gaskell’s research interests fall under the rubric of societal psychology, an approach he developed with the late Hilde Himmelweit, which suggests that a neglected focus in social psychology is the study of social phenomena and cultural forces that both shape, and in turn are shaped by, people's outlooks and actions. Past research projects include the study of energy use and conservation, the crowd in contemporary Britain, youth and unemployment, and social and cognitive aspects of survey methodology.

George Gaskell is well known for developing the toblerone model of social representations with Martin Bauer, for his edited handbook with Martin Bauer, Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound: A Practical Handbook (2000), which provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to a broad range of research methods with the objective of clarifying procedures, good practice and public accountability – now translated into Portuguese, Hebrew and Chinese.

His current research, drawing on social representations theory, focuses on science, technology and society, in particular the issues of risk and trust; how values influence people’s views about technological innovation, and the governance of science and technology. Since 1996 he has coordinated the series of Eurobarometer surveys on ‘Biotechnology and the Life Sciences’ for DG Research. He was principal investigator of ‘Life Sciences in European Society’ (LSES), a European comparative study of biotechnology in the public sphere funded by FP6 of the European Commission and more recently ‘Sensitive technologies and European Public Ethics’ (STEPE).