Health Services Management Centre
Professor of Health Systems
Co-director, MSc Health Policy and Management, University of Birmingham

Russell has held the Chair in Health Systems at the University of Birmingham since 2010. He is an Honorary Professor at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Sydney and a Fellow of Bocconi University, Milan. He was previously Director of the Centre for Health Services Management at the University of York (2005-2009) and served as a Board Director of the York Health Economics Consortium.

Russell holds numerous advisory and public appointments, throughout the UK and internationally. He presents keynote lectures and seminars around the world and provides policy and research advice to a range of national and international governments and agencies, including: the World Health Organization, OECD, the International Society for Quality in Health Care, the European Health Management Association, the European Union, Department of Health, HM Treasury, NHS Confederation, Nuffield Trust, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the governments (and sub-jurisdictions) of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cyprus, Finland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Jordan, Malta, Spain, Switzerland and New Zealand. His work on organisational culture, health care quality and patient safety was used at evidence at the Mid Staffordshire Public Inquiry chaired by Sir Robert Francis QC. He has won numerous international awards and prizes for his research including the Baxter European book Award. He is the Birmingham lead for The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute) based at the University of Cambridge.

Russell has more than 300 peer reviewed publications, many appearing in leading scientific journals such as The Lancet, BMJ, Social Science and Medicine and The Milbank Quarterly. He has authored or edited 14 books. His most recent books include: The NHS at 75: The State of Health Policy: Policy Press (2023),Healthcare Reform, Quality and Safety: Perspectives, Participants and Prospects in 30 Countries (2015) ( With Braithwaite et al); Dismantling the NHS: Evaluating the Impact of Health Reforms (2016), Policy Press (with Exworthy and Powell); Health Systems Improvement Across the Globe: Success Stories from 60 Countries. (2017) Taylor & Francis (with Braithwaite et al), Healthcare Systems Improvement Across the Globe: Future Predictions for Global Care.(2018) and Making Culture Change Happen (2022).

He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Health Organization and Management and sits on the editorial boards of: the International Journal for Health Policy and Management; the International Journal for Human Rights in Healthcare; the International Journal of Public and Private Healthcare Management and Economics; and the Open Medical Informatics Journal.

He is currently external examiner (2022-2026) for the MSc Health Policy Planning and Financing - jointly hosted between the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

In March 2022 Russell presented the 36th Annual Health Services Research Lecture at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: Changing cultures in healthcare: What, why, how?

Russell’s specialisms are:

• Evaluation of health systems reform
• Global health and international health policy
• Patient safety and healthcare quality
• Pandemic planning and management
• Speaking Up and whistleblowing in healthcare organisations
• Political economy, (especially Populist approaches) to health policy
• Performance measurement and management
• Organisational behaviour and healthcare cultures
• Publication bias in health services research
• Cooperation and partnership working in health as social care
• Medical Tourism
• Commissioning and procurement theory
• Economic Sociology, behavioural economics and Institutional Economics
• Mixed methods research